Question

I am attempting to create an API with Rails using BDD with RSpec.
Rails version is 3.1.1, Ruby version is 1.9.2, Devise version is 1.5.3, and rspec version is 2.7.0. I am relatively new to Rails and very new to RSpec.

I have defined a simple RSpec as follows to test a FormsController with essentially no logic.

describe FormsController, " handling GET /forms" do
  include Devise::TestHelpers
  render_views

  before do        
    user = Factory.create(:user) # Handle Devise authentication
    user.confirm!
    sign_in user

    @form = mock_model(Form)
    Form.stub!(:all).and_return([ @form ])
  end

  it "gets successfully" do
    get :index, :format => :json
    response.should be_success
  end

  it "finds all forms" do
    Form.should_receive(:all).and_return([@form])
    get :index, :format => :json
    Rails.logger.info "*** response.body="+response.body
  end
end

Form controller code is very simple currently.

class FormsController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :authenticate_user!

  # GET /forms
  # GET /forms.json
  def index
    @forms = Form.find_all_by_owner_id(current_user.id)

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # index.html.erb
      format.json { render :json => @forms }
    end
  end
end

When I run the spec, “finds all forms” always fails with

 Failure/Error: Form.should_receive(:all).and_return([@form])
   (<Form(id: integer, title: string, owner_id: integer, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime) (class)>).all(any args)
       expected: 1 time
       received: 0 times

The output from log/test.log shows:

*** response.body=[]

Why? I feel that the problem stems from Form.stub!(:all).and_return([ @form ]), but I am not sure how to debug.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

After much more trial and error, the following solution worked for me.

• I migrated from mocking the Form model to using Factory Girl to create the full model
• I then updated the test to use to_json to compare the response against the model.

The spec is as follows.

describe FormsController, " handling GET /forms" do
  include Devise::TestHelpers
  render_views

  before do        
    user = Factory.create(:user) # Handle Devise authentication
    user.confirm!
    sign_in user

    @form1 = Factory.create(:form)
  end

  it "gets successfully" do
    get :index, :format => :json
    response.should be_success
  end

  it "finds all forms" do
    get :index, :format => :json
    response.body.should == [ @form1 ].to_json
    Rails.logger.info "*** response.body="+response.body
  end
end