Checking if a hidden file exists with Serverspec

Question

I am using Test-Kitchen and Serverspec for my integration tests. I want to use a Serverspec file resource to verify whether a hidden file exists, in this case .gemrc. Here is my spec configuration:

require 'spec_helper'

describe "Checking the .gemrc" do  

  describe file('~/.gemrc') do
    it { should be_file }
  end
end

And here is the error output:

       Check .gemrc
         File "~/.gemrc"
    should be file (FAILED - 1)       

Failures:       

  1) Check .gemrc File "~/.gemrc" should be file       
     Failure/Error: it { should be_file }       
       test -f \~/.gemrc       
       expected file? to return true, got false       
     # /tmp/busser/suites/serverspec/default/ruby_spec.rb:14:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'       

Finished in 0.06349 seconds       
1 example, 1 failure

Why doesn't the file resource see the .gemrc file as a normal file?

Answer 1

The ~ shorthand is a path expansion supported by many popular shells, but it is not a true filesystem path. In effect, you are asking the file resource to look for a file .gemrc in an actual subdirectory named ~ (from an unspecified working directory, whatever it may be at the time the specs run).

I think you will need to specify an absolute path to the file (for example, file('/home/username/.gemrc')).