[rspec-users] post authentication token

[Matt Wynne]

This is actually a pretty tough problem for a newbie, and sent me  
reeling away from the story runner with my gumption in tatters the  
first time I tried it.

You could probably figure out how to post an authentication token in  
the HTTP headers if you use the basic underlying rails integration  
session method post(), but you may be better off just walking through  
the steps a real user would carry out in order to log in:

Given /logged in/ do
	visits "/login"
	fills_in :username, "Matt"
	fills_in :password, "secret"
	presses_button
end

This is what we do, and though instinctively it feels a little bit  
slow and clunky to do this at the top of every scenario that requires  
the user to be authenticated, in practice it's working fine for us,  
and I actually find it rather nice to know you're only vaguely coupled  
to the implementation.

Note that these steps above use the 'webrat' library which is the de- 
facto way to talk to your rails app from feature steps.

On 7 Oct 2008, at 02:52, Mark Thomson wrote:

> Hi, I have a simple story that involves the user clicking a button  
> and a new page being rendered. Seems like a simple situation, but  
> it's testing my limited knowledge. The problem I have is my response  
> test is failing, and I'm guessing it's because the button click is  
> meant to submit a post request with an authentication token, which  
> would therefore have to be included in the post call in my  
> scenario's "when" step. My question is how do I go about determining  
> the required value of the authentication_token? Or am I just really  
> confused?
>
> Mark.
>
> _______________________________________________
> rspec-users mailing list
> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users