Class Guard::Dsl
In: lib/guard/dsl.rb
Parent: Object

The DSL class provides the methods that are used in each `Guardfile` to describe the behaviour of Guard.

The main keywords of the DSL are `guard` and `watch`. These are necessary to define the used Guards and the file changes they are watching.

You can optionally group the Guards with the `group` keyword and ignore certain paths with the `ignore_paths` keyword.

You can set your preferred system notification library with `notification` and pass some optional configuration options for the library. If you don‘t configure a library, Guard will automatically pick one with default options (if you don‘t want notifications, specify `:off` as library). @see ::Guard::Notifier for more information about the supported libraries.

A more advanced DSL use is the `callback` keyword that allows you to execute arbitrary code before or after any of the `start`, `stop`, `reload`, `run_all` and `run_on_change` Guards’ method. You can even insert more hooks inside these methods. Please [checkout the Wiki page](github.com/guard/guard/wiki/Hooks-and-callbacks) for more details.

The DSL will also evaluate normal Ruby code.

There are two possible locations for the `Guardfile`:

  • The `Guardfile` in the current directory where Guard has been started
  • The `.Guardfile` in your home directory.

In addition, if a user configuration `.guard.rb` in your home directory is found, it will be appended to the current project `Guardfile`.

@example A sample of a complex Guardfile

  notification :growl

  group 'frontend' do
    guard 'passenger', :ping => true do
      watch('config/application.rb')
      watch('config/environment.rb')
      watch(%r{^config/environments/.+\.rb})
      watch(%r{^config/initializers/.+\.rb})
    end

    guard 'livereload', :apply_js_live => false do
      watch(%r{^app/.+\.(erb|haml)})
      watch(%r{^app/helpers/.+\.rb})
      watch(%r{^public/javascripts/.+\.js})
      watch(%r{^public/stylesheets/.+\.css})
      watch(%r{^public/.+\.html})
      watch(%r{^config/locales/.+\.yml})
    end
  end

  group 'backend' do
    # Reload the bundle when the Gemfile is modified
    guard 'bundler' do
      watch('Gemfile')
    end

    # for big project you can fine tune the "timeout" before Spork's launch is considered failed
    guard 'spork', :wait => 40 do
      watch('Gemfile')
      watch('config/application.rb')
      watch('config/environment.rb')
      watch(%r{^config/environments/.+\.rb})
      watch(%r{^config/initializers/.+\.rb})
      watch('spec/spec_helper.rb')
    end

    # use RSpec 2, from the system's gem and with some direct RSpec CLI options
    guard 'rspec', :version => 2, :cli => "--color --drb -f doc", :bundler => false do
      watch('spec/spec_helper.rb')                                  { "spec" }
      watch('app/controllers/application_controller.rb')            { "spec/controllers" }
      watch('config/routes.rb')                                     { "spec/routing" }
      watch(%r{^spec/support/(controllers|acceptance)_helpers\.rb}) { |m| "spec/#{m[1]}" }
      watch(%r{^spec/.+_spec\.rb})

      watch(%r{^app/controllers/(.+)_(controller)\.rb}) { |m| ["spec/routing/#{m[1]}_routing_spec.rb", "spec/#{m[2]}s/#{m[1]}_#{m[2]}_spec.rb", "spec/acceptance/#{m[1]}_spec.rb"] }

      watch(%r{^app/(.+)\.rb}) { |m| "spec/#{m[1]}_spec.rb" }
      watch(%r{^lib/(.+)\.rb}) { |m| "spec/lib/#{m[1]}_spec.rb" }
    end
  end

Methods

Public Class methods

Start Guards and notification and show a message after the Guardfile has been re-evaluated.

Stop Guards and clear internal state before the Guardfile will be re-evaluated.

Evaluate the DSL methods in the `Guardfile`.

@option options [Array<Symbol,String>] groups the groups to evaluate @option options [String] guardfile the path to a valid Guardfile @option options [String] guardfile_contents a string representing the content of a valid Guardfile @raise [ArgumentError] when options are not a Hash

Get the content to evaluate and stores it into the options as `:guardfile_contents`.

Get the content of the `Guardfile`.

@return [String] the Guardfile content

Tests if the current `Guardfile` content is usable.

@return [Boolean] if the Guardfile is usable

Get the content of the `Guardfile` and the global user configuration file.

@see user_config_path

@return [String] the Guardfile content

Gets the default path of the `Guardfile`. This returns the `Guardfile` from the current directory when existing, or the global `.Guardfile` at the home directory.

@return [String] the path to the Guardfile

Test if the current `Guardfile` contains a specific Guard.

@param [String] guard_name the name of the Guard @return [Boolean] whether the Guard has been declared

Get the file path to the project `Guardfile`.

@return [String] the path to the Guardfile

Evaluate the content of the `Guardfile`.

@param [String] contents the content to evaluate.

Read the current `Guardfile` content.

@param [String] guardfile_path the path to the Guardfile

Re-evaluate the `Guardfile` to update the current Guard configuration.

Public Instance methods

Define a callback to execute arbitrary code before or after any of the `start`, `stop`, `reload`, `run_all` and `run_on_change` guards’ method.

@param [Array] args the callback arguments @yield a block with listeners

@see Guard::Hook

Declares a group of guards to be run with `guard start —group group_name`.

@example Declare two groups of Guards

  group 'backend' do
    guard 'spork'
    guard 'rspec'
  end

  group 'frontend' do
    guard 'passenger'
    guard 'livereload'
  end

@param [Symbol, String] name the group‘s name called from the CLI @param [Hash] options the options accepted by the group @yield a block where you can declare several guards

@see Guard.add_group @see Dsl#guard @see Guard::DslDescriber

Declare a guard to be used when running `guard start`.

The name parameter is usually the name of the gem without the ‘guard-’ prefix.

The available options are different for each Guard implementation.

@example Declare a Guard

  guard 'rspec' do
  end

@param [String] name the Guard name @param [Hash] options the options accepted by the Guard @yield a block where you can declare several watch patterns and actions

@see Guard.add_guard @see Dsl#group @see Dsl#watch @see Guard::DslDescriber

Ignore certain paths globally.

@example Ignore some paths

  ignore_paths ".git", ".svn"

@param [Array] paths the list of paths to ignore

@see Guard::Listener

Sets the interactor to use.

@example Use the readline interactor

  interactor :readline

@example Use the gets interactor

  interactor :gets

@example Turn off interactions

  interactor :off

Set notification options for the system notifications. You can set multiple notification, which allows you to show local system notifications and remote notifications with separate libraries. You can also pass `:off` as library to turn off notifications.

@example Define multiple notifications

  notification :growl_notify
  notification :ruby_gntp, :host => '192.168.1.5'

@see Guard::Notifier for available notifier and its options.

@param [Symbol, String] notifier the name of the notifier to use @param [Hash] options the notification library options

Define a pattern to be watched in order to run actions on file modification.

@example Declare watchers for a Guard

  guard 'rspec' do
    watch('spec/spec_helper.rb')
    watch(%r{^.+_spec.rb})
    watch(%r{^app/controllers/(.+).rb}) { |m| 'spec/acceptance/#{m[1]}s_spec.rb' }
  end

@param [String, Regexp] pattern the pattern to be watched by the guard @yield a block to be run when the pattern is matched @yieldparam [MatchData] m matches of the pattern @yieldreturn a directory, a filename, an array of directories / filenames, or nothing (can be an arbitrary command)

@see Guard::Watcher @see Dsl#guard

[Validate]