A bundler+gemspec setup for managing dependencies

example.gemspec

Gem::Specification.new do |s|
  s.name = "example"
  s.version = "0.0.1"
  s.author = "Your Name Here"
  s.email = "your.email@pubfactory.edu"
  s.homepage = ""
  s.platform = Gem::Platform::RUBY
  s.summary = ""
  s.require_path = "lib"
  s.rubyforge_project = ""
  
  # add dependencies
  s.add_dependency("sinatra")
  s.add_development_dependency("rack-test")
  
  s.has_rdoc = true
  s.rdoc_options.concat %W{--main README -S -N --title Example}
  
  # list extra rdoc files
  s.extra_rdoc_files = %W{
  }
  
  # list the files you want to include
  s.files = %W{
  }
end

example_test.rb

require File.expand_path('../test_helper', __FILE__)
require 'sinatra'
require 'rack/test'

class ExampleTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_all_the_dependencies_are_available
    assert true, 'the requires would have failed if not'
  end
end

Gemfile

#############################################################################
# Dependencies in this Gemfile are managed through the gemspec.  Add/remove
# depenencies there, rather than editing this file ex:
#
#   Gem::Specification.new do |s|
#     ... 
#     s.add_dependency("sinatra")
#     s.add_development_dependency("rack-test")
#   end
#
#############################################################################
source :gemcutter

project_dir = File.expand_path('..', __FILE__)
gemspec_path = File.expand_path('example.gemspec', project_dir)

#
# Setup gemspec dependencies
#

gemspec = eval(File.read(gemspec_path))
gemspec.dependencies.each do |dep|
  group = dep.type == :development ? :development : :default
  gem dep.name, dep.requirement, :group => group
end
gem(gemspec.name, gemspec.version, :path => project_dir)

Rakefile

require 'rake'

#
# Dependency tasks
#

desc 'Bundle dependencies'
task :bundle do
  output = `bundle check 2>&1`
  
  unless $?.to_i == 0
    puts output
    sh "bundle install"
    puts
  end
end

#
# Test tasks
#

desc 'Default: Run tests.'
task :default => :test

desc 'Run the tests'
task :test => :bundle do
  tests = Dir.glob('test/**/*_test.rb')
  sh('ruby', '-w', '-e', 'ARGV.dup.each {|test| load test}', *tests)
end

test_helper.rb

begin
  require File.expand_path('../../.bundle/environment', __FILE__)
rescue LoadError
  require "rubygems"
  require "bundler"
  Bundler.setup
end

require 'test/unit'

Cool, I like the idea of looking through the gem dependencies and assigning them to a test group

Please don't use this Gemfile. Bundler has the ability to read gemspecs built in. Documentation is at http://gembundler.com/rubygems.html. There's also an (as yet incomplete) guide to gem development with Bundler at http://github.com/radar/guides/blob/master/gem-development.md. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the tip! I started using this system before the built-in support.