[rspec-users] Testing url_for

[David Chelimsky]

On Oct 27, 2009, at 8:21 AM, Rodrigo Rosenfeld Rosas wrote:

> Hi David, I'm giving a try to RSpec after we meet each other on  
> Rails Summit Latin America and I must admit I'm enjoying using rspec/ 
> machinist/faker.
>
> Since I have not written any controllers yet, I hadn't taken a  
> chance to try webrat.
>
> But there is a situation that I would like some feedback on how to  
> deal with it.
>
> When registering new users, they will input their e-mail and a  
> message will be sent for them to confirm their addresses and  
> continue registering.
>
> I use something like:
>
> MailNotifier.deliver_email_confirmation_message :confirmation_url =>  
> url_for(:controllers => 'users', :action =>  
> 'continue_register', :user => @user.id, :token =>  
> @user.confirmation_token)
>
> And the routes are set to ':controller/:action', so that the url  
> would translate to '/users/continue_register? 
> user=2&confirmation_token=asdf987asf'.
>
> The problem is that Ruby 1.8 will not maintain any specific order  
> for the parameters. (The application is hosted in a shared server at hostingrails.com 
> , which hosts Ruby 1.8)
>
> I know that I could add a route to generate '/users/ 
> continue_register/2/asdf987asf' instead, but I would still like to  
> know what would be the alternatives.

Oi Rodrigo,

There's no great alternative that I know of. I've always just grabbed  
the URL using a regexp and then broken it up. Something like this:

text.should =~ /http:\/\/test\.host\/users\/continue_register\?([^\s]*)/
query_string = $1
query_string.should =~ /user=2/
query_string.should =~ /confirmation_token=asdf987asf/

You could also use Rack::Utils.parse_query to convert the query_string  
to hash, or capture the entire url and use the route_to matcher:

text.should =~ /(http:\/\/test\.host\/users\/continue_register\?[^\s]*)/
{:get => $1}.should route_to(
   :controllers => 'users',
   :action => 'continue_register',
   :user => @user.id,
   :token => @user.confirmation_token
)

I don't love either of those - I'd sooner change the implementation to  
something deterministic, but that's me :)

>
> How could I verify that the delivered message contains a correct  
> url? I know that I should follow the url in an acceptance test, but  
> I'm just trying to test that the message is been correct generated,  
> in a unit test.
>
> Please, let me know if I missed something conceptually while testing  
> this situation.
>
> Thanks for RSpec and the tips about machinist, faker and webrat.
>
> Just one more doubt. When using machinist, is it possible to ignore  
> the blueprint while calling 'make' on an ActiveRecord class? I had  
> to create a named blueprint reseting all fields set by the blueprint.

I don't know of a way of to do this, but why do you need to? You may  
want to look at a couple of other libraries like Fixjour, Fixture  
Replacement and Factory Girl - they serve the same function as  
Machinist, but don't (afaik) add methods to ActiveRecord::Base.

> It was nice to meet you.

O prazer foi meu.

Tchau,
David

>
> Best Regards,
>
> Rodrigo.