Question

Are there strong reasons for using Rspec for controllers and views too?

My views are heavily dependent on Javascript, and as far as I know, Rspec doesn’t handle javascript/ajax on views. Also im using Cucumber + Selenium for that.

And should I use it for controllers?

Isn’t it enough to just use Cucumber + Selenium for the application behavior? Cause if a cucumber test passes, then it passes, why should I bother with Rspec view and controller tests?

Could someone enlighten me on this topic?

Answer 1

I use a combination of Cucumber + Shoulda, but what I’m about to tell you still applies to the setup you have.

When testing a controller I use Shoulda in a functional test to hit all of my “negative auth” situations. For example:

• A logged in user trying to access an admin page.
• A logged out user trying to access protected content.
• User A trying to delete User B’s post.

I use Shoulda for this, because what I’m generally looking for is that I was kicked to the login page, and that whatever model was trying to be accessed maliciously wasn’t actually changed. I could use Cucumber for this, but I find it easier and less cumbersome to do with a handful of Shoulda macros and some functional tests. Shoulda contexts are a great fit here.

Then for the “good auth” situations, I use Cucumber. Things like:

• A user accessing his own preferences page.
• An admin pulling up reports.

These types of tests require that I check some actual page content, and not just check for “access denied” over and over again. I find the descriptiveness of Cucumber to be a great match here.