Question

I’m using rspec request to test a JSON API that requires an api-key in the header of each request.

I know I can do this:

get "/v1/users/janedoe.json", {}, { 'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'=>"Token token=\"mytoken\"" }

But it is tedious to do that for each request.

I’ve tried setting request.env in the before block, but I get the no method NilClass error since request doesn’t exist.

I need some way, maybe in the spec-helper, to globally get this header sent with all requests.

Answer 1

I don’t think you should depend on the header if you are not testing the header itself, you should stub the method that checks if the HTTP_AUTORIZATION is present and make it return true for all specs except the spec that tests that particular header

something like…
on the controller

Controller...
  before_filter :require_http_autorization_token

  methods....

  protected
  def require_http_autorization_token
    something
  end

on the spec

before(:each) do
  controller.stub!(:require_http_autorization_token => true)
end

describe 'GET user' do
  it 'returns something' do
    #call the action without the auth token
  end

  it 'requires an http_autorization_token' do
    controller.unstub(:require_http_autorization_token)
    #test that the actions require that token
  end
end

that way one can forget the token and test what you really want to test