Question

I have a TopicsController, with new action:

def new
  @section = Section.find(params[:section_id])
  @topic = @section.topics.build
end

While trying to test this simple behavior, I ended up with quite ugly and robust mock structure

describe "#new" do
  it "builds a topic with a given section" do
    new_topic = mock_model(Topic)
    topics = mock('topics')
    topics.should_receive(:build).and_return(new_topic)

    section = mock_model(Section)
    section.should_receive(:topics).and_return(topics)

    Section.should_receive(:find).with("1").and_return(section)
    get :new, :section_id => 1

    assigns[:topic].should == new_topic
  end
end

I’d like to make this code simpler, but I don’t see how. I can’t get rid of the @section mock, and it has to return something specific on the chained .topics.build call to allow me to set an expectation.

Is there any simpler way to do this? I’m using RSpec 2.7.

Answer 1

describe TopicsController do
  specify :new do
    section = stub_chain(:topics, :build).and_return(:new_topic)
    Section.should_receive(:find).with(1).and_return(section)

    get :new, section_id: 1

    assigns_should_match section: section, topic: :new_topic
  end
end

def assigns_should_match(h)
  h.each { |k,v| assigns[k].should == v }
end