Question

My create user method in the users_controller.rb looks like:

def process_login
   is_login_valid(params[:user][:user_name], params[:user][:password])

   if logged_in?
      redirect_to root_url
   else
      @user = User.new(params[:user][:user_name]
      redirect_to :action => 'login'
end

What I have currently:

describe UsersController do
  describe "Post 'process_login'"
    it "should be successful" do
       post 'process_login'

       response.should be_success
    end
  end

end

The methods is_login_valid and logged_in? are all included in the application_controller, and are methods from a ruby class I have in my /lib folder called LoginSystem.rb

My test is failing since it isn’t mocking things correctly, this is my first time doing this so hoping someone can help me out.

Error message:

UsersController POST 'process_login' should be successful
     Failure/Error: post 'process_login'
     NoMethodError:
       You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
       You might have expected an instance of ActiveRecord::Base.
       The error occurred while evaluating nil.[]
     # ./app/controllers/users_controller.rb:11:in `process_login'
     # ./spec/controllers/users_controller_spec.rb:21

Answer 1

Aah, Thanks for the error message. I’m assuming that line 11 is is_login_valid(params[:user][:user_name], params[:user][:password]).

As you’re not sending any params in your test post params[:user] is nil hence the nil.[] error (when the controller is looking for params[:user][:user_name]), you set params by passing them as a hash as the 2nd parameter to post in your test.