Drop Unused Requests

If set to true, this cassette option will cause VCR to drop any unused requests from the cassette when a cassette is ejected. This is useful for reducing the size of cassettes that contain a large number of requests that are not used.

The option defaults to false (mostly for backwards compatibility).

Background

Given a file named "vcr_config.rb" with:

require 'vcr'

VCR.configure do |c|
  c.hook_into :webmock
  c.cassette_library_dir = 'cassettes'
end

And a previously recorded cassette file "cassettes/example.yml" with:

--- 
http_interactions: 
- request: 
    method: get
    uri: http://example.com/foo
    body: 
      encoding: UTF-8
      string: ""
    headers: {}
  response: 
    status: 
      code: 200
      message: OK
    headers: 
      Content-Length: 
      - "5"
    body: 
      encoding: UTF-8
      string: Existing Response
    http_version: "1.1"
  recorded_at: Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:58:44 GMT
recorded_with: VCR 2.0.0

Unused requests are not dropped from the cassette by default

Given a file named "not_dropped_by_default.rb" with:

$server = start_sinatra_app do
  get('/') { 'New Response' }
end

require 'vcr'

VCR.configure do |c|
  c.hook_into :webmock
  c.cassette_library_dir = 'cassettes'
end

VCR.use_cassette('example', :record => :all) do
  puts Net::HTTP.get_response('localhost', '/', $server.port).body
end

When I run ruby not_dropped_by_default.rb

Then the file "cassettes/example.yml" should contain "New Response"

And the file "cassettes/example.yml" should contain "Existing Response".

Unused requests are dropped from the cassette when the option is set

Given a file named "drop_unused_requests_set.rb" with:

$server = start_sinatra_app do
  get('/') { 'New Response' }
end

require 'vcr'

VCR.configure do |c|
  c.hook_into :webmock
  c.cassette_library_dir = 'cassettes'
end

VCR.use_cassette('example', :record => :all, :drop_unused_requests => true) do
  puts Net::HTTP.get_response('localhost', '/', $server.port).body
end

When I run ruby drop_unused_requests_set.rb

Then the file "cassettes/example.yml" should contain "New Response"

But the file "cassettes/example.yml" should not contain "Existing Response".