I'm trying to be diligent about checking my rake tasks with RSpec tests, but in the process of feeling my way around I seem to have hit a wall. I've got a really simple RSpec test that looks like this:

# ./test/meta_spec.rb
describe "Rake tasks" do
  require 'rake'

  before(:each) do
    @rake = Rake::Application.new
    @rake.load_rakefile  # => Error here!
    Rake.application = @rake
  end

  after(:each) do
    Rake.application = nil
  end

  it "should have at least one RSpec test to execute" do
    Rake.application["specs"].spec_files.size.should > 0
  end
end

I have a simple task called "specs" defined in ./Rakefile.rb which has an RSpec task that includes all the *_spec.rb files.

If I put the @rake.load_rakefile method in, I want that Rakefile to load. But instead it just bombs out. If I comment it out, however, the test fails because the "specs" task is (understandably) not defined.

Where am I going wrong?