[rspec-users] Cucumber - Testing ActionMailer

[Ben Mabey]

James Byrne wrote:
> James Byrne wrote:
>   
>> I have reached this point in testing using email-spec:
>>     
> ...
>   
>> The email To: header value and the current_email_address are the same 
>> insofar as I can tell.  But the email_spec matcher is not finding that 
>> address in the deliveries array.  Any ideas as to what I am missing?
>>     
>
> I have determined what the problem is. I just do not know how to fix it.
>
> What is happening is that I am testing a standalone (outside of a Rails 
> instance) Ruby script that requires ActionMailer.  I call this script 
> from inside the step definition using the %x alias for Kernel#`. When 
> this runs it picks up the test environment and directs email output into 
> ActionMailer::Base.deliveries.  However, this array only exists during 
> the script's existence and naturally disappears when he script 
> terminates. In consequence, the results are not available for testing.
>
> I have, up to now, simply accepted the magic of injecting test methods 
> into classes and using the results.  Now I need to have explained how I 
> get this to magic work with stand alone scripts.  How do I get 
> ActionMailer::Base.deliveries created by ActionMailer in the script to 
> remain available to cucumber/email-spec?
>   

I have plans to make email-spec work with any SMTP mailer and thereby 
making it more "black-box"y and allow for external processes to be 
easily tested... However, that is not done yet.  As it stands now you 
have two options: a) have the test execution and script in the same 
process or b) Use ARMailer[1] in your testing environment.  ARMailer 
places the messages in a database for queuing.  So instead of checking 
the in-memory array EmailSpec will check the queue on the database.  
Since this is just for testing then you could use a lightweight sqlite3 
db to store this. 

-Ben

1. http://github.com/seattlerb/ar_mailer/tree/master