Shoulda, assert_sent_email and Unreal Users

I have been banging my head against a problem in my testing. Using the UI everything worked as expected, but my tests were failing when I tried to see if emails were being sent in a specific case.

Here's the test I was trying to run using Shoulda:

context "reset password for user that has not been activated" do
setup do
@email = users(:not_activated_user).email
@emails.clear
# this code should send out a reset password email after setting up a password reset code.
post :create, :reset_password => {:email => users(:not_activated_user).email}
end

end


Here's the yml file I was using:

quentin:
login: quentin
email: quentin@example.com
newsletter: 1
notify_of_events: 1
terms_of_service: 1
salt: 7e3041ebc2fc05a40c60028e2c4901a81035d3cd
crypted_password: 00742970dc9e6319f8019fd54864d3ea740f04b1 # test
activation_code: 8f24789ae988411ccf33ab0c30fe9106fab32e9b
activated_at: <%= 5.days.ago.to_s :db %>
password_reset_code: 8f24789ae3484122cf33ab0c3ffe9106fab334de

not_activated_user:
login: not_activated_user
email: not_activated_user@example.com
newsletter: 0
notify_of_events: 0
terms_of_service: 1
salt: 7e3041ebc2fc05a40c60028e2c4901a81035d3cd
crypted_password: 00742970dc9e6319f8019fd54864d3ea740f04b1 # test
activation_code: 9f24789ae988411ccf33ab0c30fe9106fab32e9a
password_reset_code: 8f24789ae3484122cf33ab0c3ffe9106fab334de


For some reason the email part of the test failed every time. I finally changed my code to this:


context "reset password for user that has not been activated" do
setup do
user = create_user
@email = user.email
@emails.clear
post :create, :reset_password => {:email => @email}
end

end


create_user creates a user in the database instead of using the users from the users.yml file. Using this method everything started working. I have found that frequently I have better luck with my tests if I create real users. I am sure there is a good reason for this, but I am stopping my research at knowing that I need to create users or other object when the tests don't work as expected.

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