Rspec testing instance variables with user creation

Question

I'm testing to make sure that a created user is assigned to my instance variable @user. I understand what get means, but I'm not sure what to write for the test. I'm returning with an argument error for a bad URI or URL. What's wrong with my test and how do I fix it?

it "checks @user variable assignment for creation" do

    p = FactoryGirl.create(:user)
    get :users
    # I'm confused on what this line above means/does. What does the hash :users refer 
    #to
    assigns[:user].should == [p]

end

The expected URI object or string error refers to get :users and the error is as follows

Failure/Error get :users
ArgumentError:
  bad argument: (expected URI object or URI string)

pjam · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-29 21:02:50Z

1

I guess that what you want is

it "checks @user variable assignment for creation" do
    p = FactoryGirl.create(:user)
    get :show, id: p.id
    assigns(:user).should == p
end

The line you were not sure about checks that content of the assigned variable (@user) in the show view of the user p, is equal to the p user you just created more information there

answered Oct 29, 2012 at 21:02

pjam

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7 Comments

thank_you Over a year ago

It's still giving me an URI error. Just to clarify, I want to check that the user I created in the users/new transfers its form info into the variable @user in the users/creation controller.

pjam Over a year ago

I'm not sure I entirely understood what you want to test, and the error you're getting is logical, the correct params you can give to get are either :index without any params, or :edit & :show with the :id params as I shown in my answer

thank_you Over a year ago

Let me ask you this. What does get actually do? I think that will help me solve this. As for my test, this is what I'm trying to replicate youtube.com/watch?v=05WQlbaRtm8&feature=relmfu at 1:02:00

pjam Over a year ago

get will trigger a get request on the controller you're currently testing, and the action it will target is the first parameter you're passing to the function, more info there : api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/TestCase.html

pjam Over a year ago

which part of the video are you trying to replicate ? ( I don't want to watch one hour of video ;) )

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arieljuod · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-30 12:58:12Z

what action are you trying to test? usually, for creation, you need to test that the controller's "create" action creates a user and assigns an @user variable

I would test it this way:

describe 'POST create' do
  it 'creates a user' do
    params = {:user => {:name => 'xxx', :lastname => 'yyy'}}
    User.should_receive(:create).with(params)
    post :create
  end

  it 'assigns the user to an @user instance variable' do
    user = mock(:user)
    User.stub!(:create => user)
    post :create
    assigns(:user).should == user
  end
end

notice that I stub/mock all user methods, since you are testing a controller you don't have to really create the user, you only test that the controller calls the desired method, the user creation is tested inside the User model spec

also, I made 2 tests (you should test only 1 thing on each it block if possible, first it test that the controller creates a user, then I test that the controller assigns the variable

I'm assuming your controller is something like this:

controller...
  def create
    @user = User.create(params[:user])
  end

which is TOO simple, I guess you have more code and you should test that code too (validations, redirects, flash messages, etc)

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