How to get rspec to not show db queries and just dots with rails_12factor?

Question

ruby: 2.0
rails: 3.2.17
rspec: 2.14.8
Database: mysql

rspec spec used to just output the dots.

I was getting a deprecation warning when I pushed to Heroku and recently added the rails_12factor gem to get around it. Now however I get this verbose db output for each transaction when running specs locally.
That is a great option when I need it otherwise it is a lot of unneeded and distracting output.

So I would like an option that will use it for Heroku but not locally.

Note this is not addressed by using the formatter, e.g.

rspec spec -fd

Also, if there is an error, with this level of verbosity, the error nearly always scrolls off the current page...

09:50:39 durrantm Castle2012 /home/durrantm/Dropnot/_/rails_apps/linker 74093480_wire_up_verify_code
$ rspec spec/models/link_spec.rb -fd
Connecting to database specified by database.yml
...
Link
   (0.2ms)  BEGIN
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  SQL (0.6ms)  INSERT INTO `groups` (`created_at`, `group_description`, `group_name`, `updated_at`) VALUES ('2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'Various jQuery examples of common situa
tions amnd solutions', 'jQuery Examples', '2014-07-12 13:50:49')
   (0.2ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  Link Load (0.6ms)  SELECT `links`.* FROM `links` WHERE (links.position IS NOT NULL) AND (1 = 1) ORDER BY links.position DESC LIMIT 1
  SQL (0.4ms)  INSERT INTO `links` (`alt_text`, `content_date`, `created_at`, `group_id`, `position`, `updated_at`, `url_address`, `verified_date`, `version_number`) VALUE
S ('examples of common situations amnd solutions', NULL, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 141, 1, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'http://test.com', NULL, NULL)
   (0.1ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (68.4ms)  ROLLBACK
  should be valid
   (0.2ms)  BEGIN
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  SQL (0.3ms)  INSERT INTO `groups` (`created_at`, `group_description`, `group_name`, `updated_at`) VALUES ('2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'Various jQuery examples of common situa
tions amnd solutions', 'jQuery Examples', '2014-07-12 13:50:49')
   (0.1ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  Link Load (0.7ms)  SELECT `links`.* FROM `links` WHERE (links.position IS NOT NULL) AND (1 = 1) ORDER BY links.position DESC LIMIT 1
  SQL (0.5ms)  INSERT INTO `links` (`alt_text`, `content_date`, `created_at`, `group_id`, `position`, `updated_at`, `url_address`, `verified_date`, `version_number`) VALUE
S ('examples of common situations amnd solutions', NULL, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 142, 1, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'http://test.com', NULL, NULL)
   (0.2ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (67.6ms)  ROLLBACK
  should have attribute :group_id
   (0.3ms)  BEGIN
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  SQL (0.4ms)  INSERT INTO `groups` (`created_at`, `group_description`, `group_name`, `updated_at`) VALUES ('2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'Various jQuery examples of common situa
tions amnd solutions', 'jQuery Examples', '2014-07-12 13:50:49')
   (0.1ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (0.2ms)  SAVEPOINT active_record_1
  Link Load (0.5ms)  SELECT `links`.* FROM `links` WHERE (links.position IS NOT NULL) AND (1 = 1) ORDER BY links.position DESC LIMIT 1
  SQL (0.4ms)  INSERT INTO `links` (`alt_text`, `content_date`, `created_at`, `group_id`, `position`, `updated_at`, `url_address`, `verified_date`, `version_number`) VALUE
S ('examples of common situations amnd solutions', NULL, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 143, 1, '2014-07-12 13:50:49', 'http://test.com', NULL, NULL)
   (0.1ms)  RELEASE SAVEPOINT active_record_1
   (68.7ms)  ROLLBACK
  should have attribute :url_address
...

Answer 1

We saw this too, it's generated by the rails_12factor gem and it can be surpressed, typically by just making sure that gem is only in the production group, like so:

group :production do
  gem 'rails_12factor'
end

One of the dependencies of rails_12factor is another gem called rails_stdout_logging which is causing the output you're seeing.