Question

I have a number of view specs that need certain methods to be stubbed. Here’s what I thought would work (in spec_helper.rb):

Spec::Runner.configure do |config|   config.before(:each, :type => :views) do       template.stub!(:request_forgery_protection_token)       template.stub!(:form_authenticity_token)   end end 

But when I run any view spec it fails with

You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! The error occurred while evaluating nil.template

Doing the exact same thing in the before(:each) block of each example works great.

Answer 1

I tried out your example and found out that in ‘config.before’ block RSpec view example object is not yet fully initialized compared to ‘before’ block in view spec file. Therefore in ‘config.before’ block ‘template’ method returns nil as template is not yet initialized. You can see it by including e.g. ‘puts self.inspect’ in both these blocks.

In your case one workaround for achieving DRYer spec would be to define in spec_helper.rb

RSpec 2

module StubForgeryProtection   def stub_forgery_protection     view.stub(:request_forgery_protection_token)     view.stub(:form_authenticity_token)   end end  RSpec.configure do |config|   config.include StubForgeryProtection end 

RSpec 1

module StubForgeryProtection   def stub_forgery_protection     template.stub!(:request_forgery_protection_token)     template.stub!(:form_authenticity_token)   end end  Spec::Runner.configure do |config|   config.before(:each, :type => :views) do     extend StubForgeryProtection   end end 

and then in each before(:each) block where you want to use this stubs include

before(:each) do   # ...   stub_forgery_protection   # ... end