rspec-rails
rspec-rails is a testing framework for Rails 3.x and 4.x.
Use rspec-rails 1.x for Rails 2.x.
Installation
Add rspec-rails
to both the :development
and :test
groups in the
Gemfile
:
group :development, :test do
gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 2.0'
end
Download and install by running:
bundle install
Initialize the spec/
directory (where specs will reside) with:
rails generate rspec:install
To run your specs, use the rspec
command:
bundle exec rspec
# Run only model specs
bundle exec rspec spec/models
# Run only specs for AccountsController
bundle exec rspec spec/controllers/accounts_controller_spec.rb
Specs can also be run via rake spec
, though this command may be slower to
start than the rspec
command.
In Rails 4, you may want to create a binstub for the rspec
command so it can
be run via bin/rspec
:
bundle binstubs rspec-core
Generators
Once installed, RSpec will generate spec files instead of Test::Unit test files
when commands like rails generate model
and rails generate controller
are
used.
You may also invoke invoke RSpec generators independently. For instance,
running rails generate rspec:model
will generate a model spec. For more
information, see list of all
generators.
Model Specs
Model specs reside in the spec/models
folder. Use model specs to describe
behavior of models (usually ActiveRecord-based) in the application. For example:
require "spec_helper"
describe User do
it "orders by last name" do
lindeman = User.create!(first_name: "Andy", last_name: "Lindeman")
chelimsky = User.create!(first_name: "David", last_name: "Chelimsky")
expect(User.ordered_by_last_name).to eq([chelimsky, lindeman])
end
end
For more information, see cucumber scenarios for model specs.
Controller Specs
Controller specs reside in the spec/controllers
folder. Use controller specs
to describe behavior of Rails controllers. For example:
require "spec_helper"
describe PostsController do
describe "GET #index" do
it "responds successfully with an HTTP 200 status code" do
get :index
expect(response).to be_success
expect(response.status).to eq(200)
end
it "renders the index template" do
get :index
expect(response).to render_template("index")
end
it "loads all of the posts into @posts" do
post1, post2 = Post.create!, Post.create!
get :index
expect(assigns(:posts)).to match_array([post1, post2])
end
end
end
For more information, see cucumber scenarios for controller specs.
Note: To encourage more isolated testing, views are not rendered by default in controller specs. If you wish to assert against the contents of the rendered view in a controller spec, enable render_views or use a higher-level request spec or feature spec.
Request Specs
Request specs live in spec/requests, spec/api and spec/integration, and mix in behavior ActionDispatch::Integration::Runner, which is the basis for Rails' integration tests. The intent is to specify one or more request/response cycles from end to end using a black box approach.
require 'spec_helper'
describe "home page" do
it "displays the user's username after successful login" do
user = User.create!(:username => "jdoe", :password => "secret")
get "/login"
assert_select "form.login" do
assert_select "input[name=?]", "username"
assert_select "input[name=?]", "password"
assert_select "input[type=?]", "submit"
end
post "/login", :username => "jdoe", :password => "secret"
assert_select ".header .username", :text => "jdoe"
end
end
This example uses only standard Rails and RSpec API's, but many RSpec/Rails users like to use extension libraries like FactoryGirl and Capybara:
require 'spec_helper'
describe "home page" do
it "displays the user's username after successful login" do
user = FactoryGirl.create(:user, :username => "jdoe", :password => "secret")
visit "/login"
fill_in "Username", :with => "jdoe"
fill_in "Password", :with => "secret"
"Log in"
expect(page).to have_selector(".header .username", :text => "jdoe")
end
end
FactoryGirl decouples this example from changes to validation requirements, which can be encoded into the underlying factory definition without requiring changes to this example.
Among other benefits, Capybara binds the form post to the generated HTML, which means we don't need to specify them separately. Note that Capybara's DSL as shown is, by default, only available in specs in the spec/features directory. For more information, see the Capybara integration docs.
There are several other Ruby libs that implement the factory pattern or provide a DSL for request specs (a.k.a. acceptance or integration specs), but FactoryGirl and Capybara seem to be the most widely used. Whether you choose these or other libs, we strongly recommend using something for each of these roles.
View specs
View specs live in spec/views, and mix in ActionView::TestCase::Behavior.
require 'spec_helper'
describe "events/index" do
it "renders _event partial for each event" do
assign(:events, [stub_model(Event), stub_model(Event)])
render
expect(view).to render_template(:partial => "_event", :count => 2)
end
end
describe "events/show" do
it "displays the event location" do
assign(:event, stub_model(Event,
:location => "Chicago"
))
render
expect(rendered).to include("Chicago")
end
end
View specs infer the controller name and path from the path to the view template. e.g. if the template is "events/index.html.erb" then:
controller.controller_path == "events"
controller.request.path_parameters[:controller] == "events"
This means that most of the time you don't need to set these values. When spec'ing a partial that is included across different controllers, you may need to override these values before rendering the view.
To provide a layout for the render, you'll need to specify both the template and the layout explicitly. For example:
render :template => "events/show", :layout => "layouts/application"
assign(key, val)
Use this to assign values to instance variables in the view:
assign(:widget, stub_model(Widget))
render
The code above assigns stub_model(Widget)
to the @widget
variable in the view, and then
renders the view.
Note that because view specs mix in ActionView::TestCase
behavior, any
instance variables you set will be transparently propagated into your views
(similar to how instance variables you set in controller actions are made
available in views). For example:
@widget = stub_model(Widget)
render # @widget is available inside the view
RSpec doesn't officially support this pattern, which only works as a
side-effect of the inclusion of ActionView::TestCase
. Be aware that it may be
made unavailable in the future.
Upgrade note
# rspec-rails-1.x
assigns[key] = value
# rspec-rails-2.x
assign(key, value)
rendered
This represents the rendered view.
render
expect(rendered).to match /Some text expected to appear on the page/
Upgrade note
# rspec-rails-1.x
render
response.should xxx
# rspec-rails-2.x
render
rendered.should xxx
# rspec-rails-2.x with expect syntax
render
expect(rendered).to xxx
Routing specs
Routing specs live in spec/routing.
require 'spec_helper'
describe "routing to profiles" do
it "routes /profile/:username to profile#show for username" do
expect(:get => "/profiles/jsmith").to route_to(
:controller => "profiles",
:action => "show",
:username => "jsmith"
)
end
it "does not expose a list of profiles" do
expect(:get => "/profiles").not_to be_routable
end
end
Upgrade note
route_for
from rspec-rails-1.x is gone. Use route_to
and be_routable
instead.
Helper specs
Helper specs live in spec/helpers, and mix in ActionView::TestCase::Behavior.
Provides a helper
object which mixes in the helper module being spec'd, along
with ApplicationHelper
(if present).
require 'spec_helper'
describe EventsHelper do
describe "#link_to_event" do
it "displays the title, and formatted date" do
event = Event.new("Ruby Kaigi", Date.new(2010, 8, 27))
# helper is an instance of ActionView::Base configured with the
# EventsHelper and all of Rails' built-in helpers
expect(helper.link_to_event).to match /Ruby Kaigi, 27 Aug, 2010/
end
end
end
Matchers
rspec-rails exposes domain-specific matchers to each of the example group types. Most of them simply delegate to Rails' assertions.
be_a_new
- Available in all specs.
- Primarily intended for controller specs
expect(object).to be_a_new(Widget)
Passes if the object is a Widget
and returns true for new_record?
render_template
- Delegates to Rails' assert_template.
- Available in request, controller, and view specs.
In request and controller specs, apply to the response object:
expect(response).to render_template("new")
In view specs, apply to the view object:
expect(view).to render_template(:partial => "_form", :locals => { :widget => } )
redirect_to
- Delegates to assert_redirect
- Available in request and controller specs.
expect(response).to redirect_to()
route_to
- Delegates to Rails' assert_routing.
- Available in routing and controller specs.
expect(:get => "/widgets").to route_to(:controller => "widgets", :action => "index")
be_routable
Passes if the path is recognized by Rails' routing. This is primarily intended
to be used with not_to
to specify routes that should not be routable.
expect(:get => "/widgets/1/edit").not_to be_routable
rake
tasks
rspec-rails
defines rake tasks to run the entire test suite (rake spec
)
and subsets of tests (e.g., rake spec:models
).
A full list of the available rake tasks can be seen by running rake -T | grep
spec
.
Customizing rake
tasks
If you want to customize the behavior of rake spec
, you may define your own
task in the Rakefile
for your
project.
However, you must first clear the task that rspec-rails defined:
task("spec").clear
Webrat and Capybara
You can choose between webrat or capybara for simulating a browser, automating a browser, or setting expectations using the matchers they supply. Just add your preference to the Gemfile:
gem "webrat"
# ... or ...
gem "capybara"
See http://rubydoc.info/gems/rspec-rails/file/Capybara.md for more info on Capybara integration.
Contribute
See http://github.com/rspec/rspec-dev.
For rspec-rails
-specific development information, see
DEV-README.
Also see
- http://github.com/rspec/rspec
- http://github.com/rspec/rspec-core
- http://github.com/rspec/rspec-expectations
- http://github.com/rspec/rspec-mocks