Does capybara ignore code in a before(:all) block? What can I do about this?

Question

I completely understand why you should use before(:each) and make all expectations independent of each other, but I'm just interested into why this would happen:

before(:each) { visit "/" } # Selenium visits the root path of my app
before(:all) { visit "/" } # Selenium doesn't even open firefox. 

Nothing happens with the background(:all) , but if I raise an exception in the same context, Selenium does open firefox and visits this weird empty file.

file:///home/starkers/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247/gems/capybara-2.2.0/lib/capybara/empty.html

So does anyone know if Capybara actively ignores code in a before block(:all), and if so, how can I get it to not ignore code in a before(:all)?

This isn't really serious project, but I was thinking about benchmarking with Capybara, so it would be nice if someone showed me a way to get Capybara working with a before(:all).

Answer 1

There is a distinct difference in these two before blocks.

before(:each) is evaluated before every test.

before(:all) is evaluated before running your tests. Once.

You should probably be using before(:each)