Ignoring exit when running Rspec

Question

In Ruby, I need to print a feedback message and then exit with a status code of 1.

class Foo
  def bar
    puts "error"
    exit 1
  end
end

In RSpec, how can I ignore exit 1 when expecting the feedback message to be printed?

it "returns a feedback message" do
  expect { Foo.new.bar }.to output(/no error/i).to_stdout
end

If I run the spec above, no failure is raised.

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1 example, 0 failures

Alex · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-03 23:36:55Z

4

exit raises a SystemExit error. You can rescue it like any other error or expect to raise_error:

RSpec.describe Foo do
  it "returns a feedback message" do
    expect { Foo.new.bar }
      .to output(/no error/i).to_stdout
      .and raise_error(SystemExit)
  end
end

answered Jun 3 at 23:36

Alex

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1 Comment

Stefan Jun 5 at 12:52

Nice one, I always forget, that Ruby's exit doesn't exit right away. (which is what exit! does)

Stefan · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-03 18:36:10Z

3

You could use allow to capture the exit message inside your Foo instance:

describe '#bar' do
  let(:foo) { Foo.new }

  it "returns a feedback message" do
    allow(foo).to receive(:exit)
    expect { foo.bar }.to output(/no error/i).to_stdout
  end
end

This will effectively install a new method Foo#exit that does nothing by default, see the RSpec docs on Allowing messages.

answered Jun 3 at 18:36

Stefan

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