Question

I’m using a HAML helper to draw a menu

module ApplicationHelper
  def draw_menu
    items = %w[
      item1
      item2
    ] # community

    capture_haml do
      haml_tag :nav, :class => "main-menu" do
        haml_tag :ul do
          items.each do |item|
            css_class = nil
            css_class = "first-item" unless item != items.first
            css_class = "last-item" unless item != items.last

            haml_tag :li, :class => css_class do
              haml_concat link_to t("nav.#{item}")
            end
          end
        end
      end

      haml_tag :div, :class => "clearize"
    end
  end
end

I’m trying to test it (i’d like to match the expected output to be /<nav class='main-menu'>\s*<\/nav><div class='clearize'><\/div>/)

What I actually did is

require "spec_helper"

describe ApplicationHelper do

  before(:all) do
    init_haml_helpers
  end

  it "should draw a menu" do
    draw_menu().should_not be_empty
  end

end

But it keeps getting the following error:

1) ApplicationHelper should draw a menu
   Failure/Error: draw_menu().should_not be_empty
   ActionController::RoutingError:
     No route matches {}
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:20:in `block (5 levels) in draw_menu'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:19:in `block (4 levels) in draw_menu'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:14:in `each'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:14:in `block (3 levels) in draw_menu'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:13:in `block (2 levels) in draw_menu'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:12:in `block in draw_menu'
   # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:11:in `draw_menu'
   # ./spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb:10:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'

Why?
How can I make it work as expected?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you call link_to passing just a string as that argument, then that string is used as the link text. The target of the link is just given by the current action and controller: url_for (the underlying helper) just merges in the parameters you give with the parameters that make up the current action. This is why

link_to 'something', :action => :an_action

generates a link to the an_action method of the controller rendering the view.

In a helper spec this environment doesn’t exist: there is no current action or controller, so this doesn’t work