I an trying to organize code by making partial html.erb files that are shared frequently(e.g. _form.html.erb)
I want to check whether my partial code works well with different models/controllers, so I am manually doing CRUD from the views.
It would be nicer to test my code automatically using Rspec but I have no idea. Can anyone give me some guidance how to test controller code with Rspec?
To test controller and views together you write feature specs and request specs .
Request specs are lower level specs where you send HTTP requests to your application and write expectations (aka assertions in TDD lingo) about the response. They are a wrapper around ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest. Request specs should be considered the replacement for controller specs, the use of which are discouraged by by the RSpec and Rails teams.
# spec/requests/products_spec.rb
require 'rails_helper'
RSpec.describe "Products", type: :request do
describe "GET /products" do
let!(:products) { FactoryBot.create_list(:product, 4) }
it "contains the product names" do
get "/products"
expect(response).to include products.first.name
expect(response).to include products.last.name
end
end
end
Feature specs are higher level specs that focus on the user story. They often serve as acceptance tests. They use a browser simulator named Capybara which emulates a user clicking his way through the application. Capybara can also run headless browsers (headless chrome, firefox, phantom js, webkit etc) and "real" browsers through selenium. The minitest equivalent is ActionDispatch::SystemTestCase but RSpec features do not wrap it (it took minitest/testunit years to catch up here).
# Gemfile
gem 'capybara'
# spec/features/products_spec.rb
require 'rails_helper'
RSpec.feature "Products" do
let!(:products) { FactoryBot.create_list(:product, 4) }
scenario "when a user views a product" do
visit '/'
click_link 'Products'
click_link products.first.name
expect(page).to have_content products.first.name
expect(page).to have_content products.first.description
end
end
This specs tests the products#index and products#show action as well as the root page and the associated views.
Both types of specs have their strengths and weaknesses. Feature tests are good for testing large swaths of the application but are heavy. Request specs are faster and its easier to replicate a specific request that causes a bug/issue but you're basically just matching HTML with regular expressions which is highly limited.
To check whether partial code works well with different models/controllers. You can add render_views in controller specs.
How to test controller code with Rspec? Read the official doc https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs/controller-specs
And this page may help: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/how-we-test-rails-applications
