Question

I have two rails resources: notes & technologies.

Note Model:

class Note < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :technology
end

Tecnology Model:

class Technology < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :notes
end

I want to use the following Capybara steps:

Scenario: Viewing notes and their technology association
    Given there are the following notes:
      | subject              |
      | recursive functions  |
    And the note "recursive functions" has the technology "JavaScript"
    And I am on the homepage
    Then I should see "recursive functions"
    And I should see "JavaScript"

The step I use for the line:

    And the note "recursive functions" has the technology "JavaScript"

Is (I suspect the issue is in the following):

Given /^the note "(.*?)" has the technology "(.*?)"$/ do |note, tech|
  @note = Note.find_by_subject!(note)
  @note.technology = Technology.find_or_create_by_name(tech)
end

I want this to find_or_create the given Technology object’s name (name is a parameter of the Technology object) and create the association so that the note belongs to the technology.

Then, the last step:

And I should see "JavaScript"

Is to verify that note.technology.name is displaying next to each note instance on Note#index

  <% @notes.each do |note| %>
    <li>
      <%= link_to note.subject, note %> 
        <% if note.technology %>
          | Tech: <%= note.technology.name %>        
        <% end %>
    </li>
  <% end %>

When I run this Cucumber feature the steps pass until the last, And I should see “JavaScript”, with the error:

expect there to be content "JavaScript" in "Note Index Page"
recursive functions \n \n recursive functions \n \n (RSpec:Expectations::ExpectactionNotMetError
./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:107 in '/^(?:|I )should see "([^"]*)"$/'
features\viewing_notes.feature:20:in 'And I should see "JavsScript"'

I know that the association is working because creating this association with a form works (and displays @note.technology.name on Note#index). The issue seems to be with my step definition. Is there a better way to test this to see what’s happening? Maybe writing an Rspec spec? Thanks for taking the time to help.

(Possibly relevant:)

gem 'rails', '3.0.0'

group :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails', '2.0'
  gem 'factory_girl', '2.6.4'
end

group :cucumber do
  gem 'cucumber-rails', '1.0.6'
  gem 'capybara'
end

Answer 1

Quick answer:

@note.technology = Technology.find_or_create_by_name(tech)
@note.save