From http://www.reevoo.com/blogs/bengriffiths/2005/06/24/a-test-by-any-other-name/:

We find that the pattern ‘test_should_***_on_***’ a useful way of naming tests – it’s an idea stolen from JBehave . If this test were to fail, I’m reminded that I should (!) ask myself the question ‘should the class I’m testing do this?’ before I go on a bug-hunt. The other advantage is that I can use my test classes to generate some simple documentation for my classes. Here’s a rake target that can do just that:

desc "Generate agiledox-like documentation for tests"
task :agiledox do
  tests = FileList['test/**/*_test.rb']
  tests.each do |file|
    m = %r".*/([^/].*)_test.rb".match(file)
    puts m[1]+" should:\n"
    test_definitions = File::readlines(file).select {|line| line =~ /.*def test.*/}
    test_definitions.each do |definition|
      m = %r"test_(should_)?(.*)".match(definition)
      puts " - "+m[2].gsub(/_/," ")
    end
  puts "\n"
 end
end

An example from our codebase, typing rake agiledox generates:

security_controller should:
- redirect to page stored in session on successful login
- store user object in session on successful login
- redirect to page stored in session after signup
- store user object in session after signup
- reject signup when passwords do not match
- reject signup when login too short
- report both errors if passwords dont match and username too short
- not store user in session if password not correct on signup
- remain on login page if password not correct on signup
- remove user from session on log out

Stolen from: ZenSpider: http://blog.zenspider.com/archives/2006/08/upgrade_rails_n.html

If you prefer to freeze your rails checkout. I recommend stealing this rule:

namespace :rails do
  namespace :freeze do
    desc "Lock to a specific rails version. Defaults to 1.1.5 or specify with RELEASE=x.y.z"
    task :version do
      rel = ENV['RELEASE'] || '1.1.5'
      tag = 'rel_' + rel.split(/[.-]/).join('-')
      rails_svn = "http://dev.rubyonrails.org/svn/rails/tags/#{tag}"

      puts "Freezing to #{tag} using #{rails_svn}"
      sh "type svn"
      
      dir = 'vendor/rails'
      rm_rf dir
      mkdir_p dir
      for framework in %w( railties actionpack activerecord actionmailer activesupport actionwebservice )
        checkout = "#{dir}/#{framework}"
        sh "svn export #{rails_svn}/#{framework} #{checkout}"
        unless test ?d, checkout then
          puts "ERROR: checkout missing: #{checkout}"
          exit 1
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

and running:

rake rails:freeze:version

It'll default to 1.1.5 or you can specify the tagged version you want using RELEASE=x.y.z.

From http://newbieonrails.topfunky.com/articles/2006/07/28/foscon-and-living-dangerously-with-rake:
Updated from : http://mentalized.net/journal/2006/07/28/run_specific_tests_via_rake/

If you define a rule with an empty string, you can catch any task that hasn’t been defined elsewhere. This makes it easy to dynamically create rake tasks. Essentially, this is method_missing for rake!

rule "" do |t|
  t.name 
  # ... do something with the name of the task  
end

I experimented by writing a rule that will take a task with the format of controllername_testname and automatically run a single test from the relevant functional or unit test.

##
# Run a single test in Rails.
#
#   rake blogs_list
#   => Runs test_list for BlogsController (functional test)
#
#   rake blog_create
#   => Runs test_create for BlogTest (unit test)

rule "" do |t|
  if /(.*)_([^.]+)$/.match(t.name)
    file_name = $1
    test_name = $2
    if File.exist?("test/unit/#{file_name}_test.rb")
      file_name = "unit/#{file_name}_test.rb" 
    elsif File.exist?("test/functional/#{file_name}_controller_test.rb")
      file_name = "functional/#{file_name}_controller_test.rb" 
    else
      raise "No file found for #{file_name}" 
    end
    sh "ruby -Ilib:test test/#{file_name} -n /^test_#{test_name}/" 
  end
end

Update from : http://mentalized.net/journal/2006/07/28/run_specific_tests_via_rake/
This modified version uses a different syntax (rake test:foo:bar instead rake foo_bar) and regex matching for test names.

Usage

$ rake test:blog
=> Runs the full BlogTest unit test

$ rake test:blog:create
=> Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogTest unit test

$ rake test:blog_controller
=> Runs all tests in the BlogControllerTest functional test

$ rake test:blog_controller:create
=> Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogControllerTest functional test	

Code

# Run specific tests or test files
# 
# rake test:blog
# => Runs the full BlogTest unit test
# 
# rake test:blog:create
# => Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogTest unit test
# 
# rake test:blog_controller
# => Runs all tests in the BlogControllerTest functional test
# 
# rake test:blog_controller
# => Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogControllerTest functional test	
rule "" do |t|
  # test:file:method
  if /test:(.*)(:([^.]+))?$/.match(t.name)
    arguments = t.name.split(":")[1..-1]
    file_name = arguments.first
    test_name = arguments[1..-1] 
    
    if File.exist?("test/unit/#{file_name}_test.rb")
      run_file_name = "unit/#{file_name}_test.rb" 
    elsif File.exist?("test/functional/#{file_name}_test.rb")
      run_file_name = "functional/#{file_name}_test.rb" 
    end
    
    sh "ruby -Ilib:test test/#{run_file_name} -n /#{test_name}/" 
  end
end

Do whatever you want with the above code, it’s yours now.