Rakefile and test suite not included in released gem archives

[davexunit]

This prevents one from independently verifying that the official gem release passes its own test suite.

[rafaelfranca]

Yes, it is by design. Rubygems' test_files is deprecated and also we think If you want to verify that gem release passes its own test suite just look the tagged verrsion build in our continuos integration test suite.

[davexunit]

I believe you are forgetting an important use-case: alternative package managers. I am trying to package Arel for a GNU/Linux distribution, and part of the build process is to run the tests to make sure the build works with the rest of the system's dependencies. I have packaged many other gems that include the Rakefile and test suite and I've been able to verify that the gems work in my continuous integration system in which the complete dependency graph is verified, all the way down to libc.

I've also gone the route of building from the release tarballs hosted here on GitHub, but they are just an auto-generated tarball for a tag, not the releases that people are actually using and they typically present other issues. If you really do not want to include the test suite in released gems, I suppose that I will have to make do with the tarball.

[rekado]

I'd like to express support for the request to include tests in gem releases.

[rafaelfranca]

We plan to send to Rubygems just the files that are needed to run the gem. Tests are not going to be released. They will just increase the size of the package and users don't need those files.

See rubygems/rubygems@c07356a and rubygems/guides#90.

[davexunit]

This is very disappointing. PyPI, the RubyGems equivalent for Python, hosts releases complete with full test suites. I'm unsure why the convention here and elsewhere in the Ruby community is to exclude tests from releases such that downstream users/packagers cannot verify that the package integrates with their system.

Thanks for the relevant links.