Question

I’m a newbie working through Michael Hartl’s Tuby on Rails Tutorial and I have a couple of failed items in a test in Chapter 9.

Running RSPEC test returns:

sis-macbook-pro:sample_app Lagaspi$ bundle exec rspec spec/
...................................FF................................

Failures:

1) Authentication authorization in the Users controller visiting the edit page 
 Failure/Error: before { visit edit_user_path(user) }
 NameError:
   undefined local variable or method `user' for #<RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_2::Nested_3::Nested_2::Nested_1:0x007fca6433d3b8>
 # ./spec/requests/authentication_pages_spec.rb:72:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

2) Authentication authorization in the Users controller submitting to the update action 
 Failure/Error: before { put user_path(user) }
 NameError:
   undefined local variable or method `user' for #<RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_2::Nested_3::Nested_2::Nested_2:0x007fca6434db50>
 # ./spec/requests/authentication_pages_spec.rb:77:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

Finished in 1.85 seconds
69 examples, 2 failures

Failed examples:

rspec ./spec/requests/authentication_pages_spec.rb:73 # Authentication authorization in the Users controller visiting the edit page 
rspec ./spec/requests/authentication_pages_spec.rb:78 # Authentication authorization in the Users controller submitting to the update action 

My authentication_pages_spec.rb

require 'spec_helper'

describe "Authentication" do

subject { page }

describe "signin page" do
before { visit signin_path }

it { should have_selector('h1',    text: 'Sign in') }
it { should have_selector('title', text: 'Sign in') }
end

describe "signin" do
before { visit signin_path }

describe "with invalid information" do
  before { click_button "Sign in" }

  it { should have_selector('title', text: 'Sign in') }
  it { should have_selector('div.alert.alert-error', text: 'Invalid') }

  describe "after visiting another page" do
    before { click_link "Home" }
    it { should_not have_selector('div.alert.alert-error') }
  end
 end

 describe "with valid information" do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
  before { sign_in user }

  it { should have_selector('title', text: user.name) }
  it { should have_link('Profile',     href: user_path(user)) }
  it { should have_link('Sign out',    href: signout_path) }
  it { should have_link('Settings',    href: edit_user_path(user)) }
  it { should have_link('Users',       href: users_path) }
  it { should_not have_link('Sign in', href: signin_path) }

  describe "followed by signout" do
    before { click_link "Sign out" }
    it { should have_link('Sign in') }
  end
 end
end

describe "authorization" do

describe "for non-signed-in users" do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }

  describe "when attempting to visit a protected page" do
    before do
      visit edit_user_path(user)
      fill_in "Email",    with: user.email
      fill_in "Password", with: user.password
      click_button "Sign in"
    end

    describe "after signing in" do

      it "should render the desired protected page" do
        page.should have_selector('title', text: 'Edit user')
      end
    end
  end
  end

   describe "in the Users controller" do

    describe "visiting the edit page" do
      before { visit edit_user_path(user) }
      it { should have_selector('title', text: 'Sign in') }
    end

    describe "submitting to the update action" do
      before { put user_path(user) }
      specify { response.should redirect_to(signin_path) }
    end
  end
  end

  describe "as wrong user" do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
  let(:wrong_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user, email: "[e-mail]") }
  before { sign_in user }

  describe "visiting Users#edit page" do
    before { visit edit_user_path(wrong_user) }
    it { should_not have_selector('title', text: full_title('Edit user')) }
  end

  describe "submitting a PUT request to the Users#update action" do
    before { put user_path(wrong_user) }
    specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
  end
  end
end

Here’s line 73 from above

it { should have_selector('title', text: 'Sign in') }

And line 78 from above

specify { response.should redirect_to(signin_path) }

Any ideas? I’m really stuck as to what this means.Thanks Si.

Answer 1

On line 50 you have

let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }

But :user is no longer available by the time you reach line 73 because you close off the describe block that :user is defined within in line 68. Same thing on line 77 where you try to use it again.

My recommendation is to move the let(:user) to the top of the spec so you only need to define it once instead of including it throughout the spec. Failing that, define it again on line 71 (the line after describe “in the Users controller” do)

---

Potential solution is defining let(:user)….. at the top so you only need to define user once instead of in each block

require 'spec_helper'

describe "authentication" do
  subject { page }
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
  ...