context "GET show" do
      setup do
        @feed = Factory(:feed)
        get :show, :id => @feed.to_param
      end
      should_not_set_the_flash
      should_respond_with :success
      should_render_template :show
    end
 

The method I am testing looks like this:

 
  def show
    @feed = Feed.find(params[:id])
    @entries = @feed.entries
    respond_to do |format|
      format.pjs { debugger; render :template => 'feeds/show', :layout => false }
      format.json { render :json => @feed.as_json }
      format.html { render :template => 'feeds/show', :layout => params[:layout] || true  }
    end
  end
 

The result of running this test is:
Missing template feeds/show.erb in view path app/views

That is very irritating.

I found that if I change the order as below everything works fine:

 
  def show
    @feed = Feed.find(params[:id])
    @entries = @feed.entries
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html { render :template => 'feeds/show', :layout => params[:layout] || true  }
      format.pjs { debugger; render :template => 'feeds/show', :layout => false }
      format.json { render :json => @feed.as_json }
    end
  end
 

I can also change the test and explicitly list the format:

 
    context "GET show" do
      setup do
        @feed = Factory(:feed)
        get :show, :id => @feed.to_param, :format => 'html'
      end
      should_not_set_the_flash
      should_respond_with :success
      should_render_template :show
    end
 

I'm guessing that is the appropriate way to deal with things. It appears that the test doesn't send in 'html' as a default format. I might add that this test lives inside a Rails engine. I'm not sure if that affects things, but I figure that I would list this issue here in case anyone else runs into the same problem or in case I forget how to deal with this which is quite likely.

 
Test::Unit::TestCase.class_eval do
  def self.should_require_login(*actions)
    actions.each do |action|
      should "Require login for '#{action}' action" do
        get(action)
        assert_redirected_to(login_url)
      end
    end
  end
end
</ruby>
 
Then inside your controller test do something like this:
<pre lang="ruby">
class UserControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  should_require_login :edit, :update, :destroy
end
 


test: Lookup should belong_to lookup_status. (LookupTest):
NameError: uninitialized constant LookupStatu


The Shoulda test looks like this:

should_belong_to :lookup_status


Nothing to complicated there. Should recognizes the relationship just find but when it tries to find a class it goes looking for LookupStatu. I fixed this by adding the the class name to the relationship thus:


belongs_to :lookup_status, :class_name => 'LookupStatus'


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.

This is due to this line in test.rb found in the environments folder:

config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :test


Now here's the tip. You might think you are really smart if you take advantage of the fact that Rails has a very handy initializers folder and put a file in there called mail.rb that contains all your email settings.

DON'T do it. That initializer will override your test settings and the email specific tests will always fail.