[rspec-users] Test HTML output from Rails helper

[Pat Maddox]

Scott Taylor <mailing_lists at railsnewbie.com> writes:

> On Oct 18, 2008, at 4:40 AM, Thomas Watson Steen wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I'm using RSpec in with Ruby on Rails. I've made a helper module
>> method that generates some HTML and would like to create a rspec
>> test to validate this HTML. I can of cause use regex to validate it
>> as a string, but would much rather validate it by traversing the DOM
>> and checking that the elements I expect is present. Any pointers?
>
> No - that's not really an option.  The rails stack has no idea about a
> DOM.

Hrm...he's just generating HTML, he should be able to use Hpricot.
Does have_tag work with plain strings, or only in examples where there's
a response body?  If it's the latter, we should make it work with plain
strings as well.  But Hpricot would certainly be useful I would think.


> You'd be able to write a spec like the following:
>
> it "should link with the correct name" do
>   helper.should_receive(:link_to).with("foo", {:controller =>  "foo",
> :action => "foo"})
>   helper.my_method("foo")
> end

I don't like this, I don't think you're testing anything here.

Pat