Is there a way to force RSpec to re-evaluate a let statement?

Question

This example is a bit contrived, but explains the use case well.

let( :number_of_users ){ User.count }

it 'counts users' do
  User.create
  number_of_users.should == 1
  User.create
  number_of_users.should == 2
end

This test fails because number_of_users is only evaluated once, and gets stale. Is there a way to have this re-evaluated each time it is called?

Answer 1

You can just define a regular method:

def number_of_users
  User.count
end

it 'counts users' do
  User.create
  number_of_users.should == 1
  User.create
  number_of_users.should == 2
end

See this blog post for some more details, including how to store the helper methods in a separate module.