Ruby-Rspec: Initialize PageObjects once in spec_helper instead of each spec - ruby

Question

I variables set for xpaths in a file called PageObjects. Each spec I run I initialize the page objects with "p = PageObjects.new". However, I would like to initialize "p = PageObjects.new" once in "spec_helper.rb" instead of each spec.
This still gives me "error: uninitialized constant PageObject"...
require 'selenium-webdriver'
require 'yaml'
require 'rspec/retry'
require 'pry'
require 'bundler/setup'
p = PageObject.new
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.default_sleep_interval = 1
config.default_retry_count = 4
config.verbose_retry = false
config.display_try_failure_messages = true
config.exceptions_to_retry = [Net::ReadTimeout, Capybara::ElementNotFound]
end
Is there a way to achieve my goal by initializing PageObject once inside spec_helper rather than in each spec?

Answer 1

RSpec helpers seems to be the perfect solution for you
define the helper.rb
module Helpers
def p
#page_object ||= PageObject.new
end
end
Configure RSpec to include it:
RSpec.configure do |c|
c.include Helpers
end
And then you can use p method that will give you the PageObject:
specify do
expect(p).to be_a(PagObject)
expect(p.object_id).to eq(p.object_id)
end

Answer 2

You effectively want your test database to be maintained between tests. This is dangerous for a number of reasons, the most obvious being previous tests will affect future ones. As you're dealing with the same PageObject you will need to reset it between tests.
Putting that to one side, the options for enabling / disabling this can be found at:
https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs/transactions, namely:
When you run rails generate rspec:install, the spec/rails_helper.rb
file includes the following configuration:
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.use_transactional_fixtures = true
end
The name of this setting is a bit misleading. What it really means
in Rails is "run every test method within a transaction." In the
context of rspec-rails, it means "run every example within a
transaction."
The idea is to start each example with a clean database, create
whatever data is necessary for that example, and then remove that data
by simply rolling back the transaction at the end of the example.
Disabling transactions If you prefer to manage the data yourself, or
using another tool like database_cleaner to do it for you, simply tell
RSpec to tell Rails not to manage transactions:
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
end