Using Given/Let w/ Feature/Scenario in Capybara

Question

I'd like to set a variable using "given" (or "let") that is accessible by all of the "features" within my spec.rb file. How do I do this? Where should the "given" statement be located within the file? Thanks!

require 'spec_helper'

feature "Home page" do
  given(:base_title) { "What Key Am I In?" }
  scenario "should have the content 'What Key Am I In?'" do
    visit '/static_pages/home'
    expect(page).to have_content('What Key Am I In?')
  end

  scenario "should have the title 'What Key Am I In? | Home'" do
    visit '/static_pages/home'
    expect(page).to have_title("#{base_title}")
  end

  scenario "should not have a custom page title | Home'" do
    visit '/static_pages/home'
    expect(page).not_to have_title("| Home")
  end  
end

feature "About page" do
  scenario "should have the content 'About'" do
    visit '/static_pages/about'
    expect(page).to have_content('About')
  end

  scenario "should have the title 'What Key Am I In? | About'" do
    visit '/static_pages/about'
    expect(page).to have_title('What Key Am I In? | About')
  end
end

Answer 1

given/let calls are used at the top of a feature/describe/context block and apply to all contained feature/describe/context or scenario/it blocks. In your case, if you have two separate feature blocks, you'd want to enclose them in a higher level feature/describe/context block and place whatever given/let calls you want to apply to all at the higher level.

To quote the capybara documentation for use in RSpec:

feature is in fact just an alias for describe ..., :type => :feature, background is an alias for before, scenario for it, and given/given! aliases for let/let!, respectively.

Further, in RSpec, describe blocks (whether expressed through describe, context or the Capybara alias feature) can be nested arbitrarily deeply. In Cucumber, by contrast, feature can only exist at the top level of the spec.

You can Google "rspec nested describe" for more info.