Question

For integration testing, I check content of pages, to make sure user would see what I want.

For example:

it "shows list of articles" do
    get :articles
    response.body.should have_content("Articles found:")
end

Somewhere in articles view, there is this line:

<h1>Articles found:</h1>

I want to get rid of strings duplicity, make the code easier to maintain and tests more solid. I’m considering putting those strings into config/locales/en.yml and then do something like this

it "shows list of articles" do
    get :articles
    response.body.should have_content(I18n.t('title'))
end

and in the view:

<h1><%=t :title %></h1>

Does it make sense from long term perspective or is there a better/standardized way?

Answer 1

I wouldn’t, internationalized strings are meant for humans to read.

As an alternative, see if you can structure the document in a way that makes asserting by selects more deterministic.

it "shows list of articles" do
    get :articles
    assert_select "h1.articles-title"
end

And in the view.

<h1 class="articles-title"><%=t :title %></h1>

While I understand that your original test case asserts the presence of a correct title, I would argue that the greatest benefit for a general integration test like this is the presence of a title.