Question

Sorcery authentication gem: https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery

Sorcery’s creator provides an example Rails app with Sorcery test helpers included in its Test::Unit functional tests: https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery-example-app/blob/master/test/functional/users_controller_test.rb

# Test::Unit functional test example
require 'test_helper'

class UsersControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  setup do
    @user = users(:noam)
  end

  test "should show user" do
    login_user
    get :show, :id => @user.to_param
    assert_response :success
  end

But I can’t figure out how to get login_user to work in my RSpec controller specs.

/gems/sorcery-0.7.5/lib/sorcery/test_helpers/rails.rb:7:in `login_user': 
undefined method `auto_login' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

Here’s the relevant code in the Sorcery gem regarding the above error:
https://github.com/NoamB/sorcery/blob/master/lib/sorcery/test_helpers/rails.rb

module Sorcery
  module TestHelpers
    module Rails
      # logins a user and calls all callbacks
      def login_user(user = nil)
        user ||= @user
        @controller.send(:auto_login,user)
        @controller.send(:after_login!,user,[user.send(user.sorcery_config.username_attribute_names.first),'secret'])
      end

      def logout_user
        @controller.send(:logout)
      end
    end
  end
end

UPDATE:

As per Sorcery’s documentation “Testing in Rails 3“, I have indeed added include Sorcery::TestHelpers::Rails to my spec_helper.rb.

The Sorcery test helper login_user acts on @controller, but I’m getting the error because @controller is nil in my controller spec. Here’s my spec:

#spec/controllers/forums_controller_spec.rb
require 'spec_helper'

describe ForumsController do
  render_views

  describe 'GET new' do
    describe 'when guest' do
      it 'should deny and redirect' do
        get :new
        response.should redirect_to(root_path)
      end
    end

    describe 'when admin' do
      p @controller #=> nil
      @user = User.create!(username: "Test", password: "secret", email: "[e-mail]")
      login_user # <--------------- where the error occurs
      it 'should resolve' do
        get :new
        response.should render_template(:new)
      end
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

FWIW, I spent a lot of time looking for an answer to this problem. I am using Capybara and RSpec. As it turns out, you need to login manually to using Sorcery to get the login to work.

I’ve created a Gist on creating integration tests with Sorcery/Rspec/Capybara here:
https://gist.github.com/2359120/9989c14af19a48ba726240d030c414b882b96a8a