Feature: Define example attribute In order to streamline process As an RSpec user I want to easily define helper methods that act as a variable assignment It is fairly common to start with a local variable in one example, use the same local variable in the next, and then extract the declaration of that variable to before(:each). This requires converting the locals to instance variables. This feature streamlines the process by defining a helper method so you can extract the duplication without having to change other references to the same variables to @instance_variables. Scenario: Given a file named "counter_spec.rb" with: """ require 'spec/autorun' class Counter def initialize @count = 0 end def count @count += 1 end end describe Counter do let(:counter) { Counter.new } it "returns 1 the first time" do counter.count.should == 1 end it "returns 2 the second time because the counter itself is cached by the 'assign' method" do counter.count counter.count.should == 2 end end """ When I run "spec counter_spec.rb" Then the stdout should include "2 examples, 0 failures"