RSpec::Rails::ControllerExampleGroup

Extends ActionController::TestCase::Behavior to work with RSpec.

Examples

with stubs

describe WidgetsController do
  describe "GET index" do
    it "assigns all widgets to @widgets" do
      widget = stub_model(Widget)
      Widget.stub(:all) { widget }
      get :index
      assigns(:widgets).should eq([widget])
    end
  end
end

with a factory

describe WidgetsController do
  describe "GET index" do
    it "assigns all widgets to @widgets" do
      widget = Factory(:widget)
      get :index
      assigns(:widgets).should eq([widget])
    end
  end
end

with fixtures

describe WidgetsController do
  describe "GET index" do
    fixtures :widgets

    it "assigns all widgets to @widgets" do
      get :index
      assigns(:widgets).should eq(Widget.all)
    end
  end
end

Matchers

In addition to the stock matchers from rspec-expectations, controller specs add these matchers, which delegate to rails' assertions:

response.should render_template(*args)
=> delegates to assert_template(*args)

response.should redirect_to(destination)
=> delegates to assert_redirected_to(destination)

Isolation from views

RSpec's preferred approach to spec'ing controller behaviour is to isolate the controller from its collaborators. By default, therefore, controller example groups do not render views. This means that a view template need not even exist in order to run a controller spec, and you can still specify which template the controller should render.

View rendering

If you prefer a more integrated approach, similar to that of Rails' functional tests, you can tell controller groups to render views with the render_views declaration:

describe WidgetsController do
  render_views
  ...