Rake tasks to run tests in parallel, to use multiple CPUs and speedup test runtime.

Based heavily on on http://github.com/grosser/parallel_specs/; i.e. this is a copy of parallel_spec with a handful of changes to run test/**/*_test.rb instead of specs.

script/plugin install git://github.com/jasonm/parallel_test.git

Copy your test environment inside config/database.yml once for every cpu you got ('test'+number).

test:
  adapter: mysql
  database: xxx_test
  username: root

test2:
  adapter: mysql
  database: xxx_test2
  username: root

For each environment, create the databases mysql -u root -> create database xxx_test2;

Run like hell :D

(Make sure your `test/test_helper.rb` does not set `ENV['RAILS_ENV']` to 'test')

rake test:parallel:prepare[2] #db:reset for each env

rake test:parallel[1] --> 86 seconds
rake test:parallel    --> 47 seconds (default = 2)
rake test:parallel[4] --> 26 seconds
...

running tests in 2 processes
93 tests per process
starting process 1
starting process 2
... test output ...
Took 47.319378 seconds

• find out how many CPUs the user has
• sync the output, so that results do not appear all at once
• grab the 'xxx examples ..' line and display them at the bottom
• find a less hacky approach (without manual creation so many envs)

inspired by pivotal labs
Michael Grosser
[email protected]
Hereby placed under public domain, do what you want, just do not hold me accountable...