rspec shared examples vs shared context

shared_examples contain a collection of examples which you can include in other describe blocks.

A shared_context contains a collection of shared code, which you can include in your test file. Think of this like a ruby module.

You use a shared_context in your test code by including it with the include_context method.

On the other hand, you state that a certain thing behaves_like a shared example group.

It's a matter of readability I guess.

UPDATE:

If you look at the source code you'll see that they're exactly the same thing. Check out line 98 in this file:

https://github.com/rspec/rspec-core/blob/master/lib/rspec/core/shared_example_group.rb#L98

alias_method :shared_context,      :shared_examples

You'll also see that shared_examples_for is another alias for the same method.

Very trivial and cosmetic, but include_context doesn't output "behaves like" in --format documentation.

shared_examples are tests written in a way that you can run them in multiple settings; extracting common behavior between objects.

it_behaves_like "a correct object remover" do
    ...
end

shared_contexts is any setup code that you can use to prepare a test case . This allows you to include test helper methods or prepare for the tests to run.

include_context "has many users to begin with"