undefined method `visit' when using RSpec and Capybara in rails

Question

I can't get capybara working with rspec. It gives me this error:

undefined method `visit' for #<RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_1:0x16529f8 @example=nil>

I know there are lots of posts about this but non of the solutions are working for me. Most of them involve the specs not being in /spec/features - which mine is in.

First the error:

$bundle exec rspec spec
F

Failures:

  1) security signs users in
     Failure/Error: visit "/sessions/new"
     NoMethodError:
       undefined method `visit' for #<RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_1:0x16529f8 @example=nil>
     # ./spec/features/security_spec.rb:4:in `(root)'

 Finished in 0.006 seconds
 1 example, 1 failure

Failed examples:

rspec ./spec/features/security_spec.rb:3 # security signs users in

I think its important to note that at first I was using the URL Helper 'new_sessions_path' and it kept giving me an error undefined local variable or method 'new_sessions_path'. I know it is valid because:

$ rake routes
logout_sessions GET    /sessions/logout(.:format) sessions#logout
       sessions POST   /sessions(.:format)        sessions#create
   new_sessions GET    /sessions/new(.:format)    sessions#new
      contracts POST   /contracts(.:format)       contracts#create
  new_contracts GET    /contracts/new(.:format)   contracts#new
 edit_contracts GET    /contracts/edit(.:format)  contracts#edit
                GET    /contracts(.:format)       contracts#show
                PUT    /contracts(.:format)       contracts#update
                DELETE /contracts(.:format)       contracts#destroy
           root        /                          contracts#index

My Gemfile:

source 'https://rubygems.org'

gem 'rails', '3.2.11'
gem 'execjs'

group :assets do
  gem 'sass-rails',   '~> 3.2.3'
  gem 'coffee-rails', '~> 3.2.1'
  gem 'uglifier', '>= 1.0.3'
end

gem 'jquery-rails'
gem 'activerecord-oracle_enhanced-adapter', '~> 1.4.1'
gem 'jruby-openssl'
gem 'therubyrhino'
gem 'kaminari'
gem 'nokogiri'

group :development do
  gem 'warbler'
end

group :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails'
  gem 'capybara'
  gem 'activerecord-jdbcsqlite3-adapter'
end

spec_helper.rb inside of my_app/spec:

# This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install'
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'rspec/autorun'

# Capybara integration
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'capybara/rails'

# Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
# in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config|
  # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures
  # config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true
  config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = false
  config.order = "random"
  # Include path helpers
  config.include Rails.application.routes.url_helpers
end

my_app/spec/features/security_spec.rb:

describe "security", :type => :feature do
  it "signs users in" do
    visit "/sessions/new"
    fill_in "username", :with => "user"
    fill_in "password", :with => "pass"
    click_button "Sign In"

    page.should have_content('Login Successful')
  end
end

I've tried defining the test above both with and without :type => :feature. It makes no difference either way. Any ideas what I should try next?

Answer 1

One of the reasons might be if you defined page variable using let:

RSpec.describe "something" do
  let(:page) { some_page }

  it do
    visit "/"
  end
end

Results in the following error:

  1) something
     Failure/Error: visit "/"

     NameError:
       undefined method `visit' for class `#<Class:0x00007ffca6221898>'
       Did you mean?  visible

To fix it, rename page variable.

Answer 2

Other than the upgrading issue which you would run into when ugprading from an older Rails app with require 'spec_helper.rb' instead of require 'rails_helper.rb', this happens for 3 known reasons:

1. Your spec isn't of type "feature" which means Capybara doesn't know how to run it using Javascript or a browser. You want to do one of two things: 1) Typically, you want config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location! set in your RSpec.configure and that will mean that what's in the features folder will be a feature.

if you have something non-standard, you can add type: :feature to the spec describe block to turn that spec in a feature, but typically it's easier just to put them into the /features folder and let the infer setting do its job.

2. You accidentally put the visit outside of the it block

The visit must be within the it, which is within the describe. Be sure not to put the visit directly within the describe.

3. Some other kernal panic you can't see has caused Capy to shut down the spec.

This is a nasty one to diagnose but I have seen it. It means that Capy didn't actually parse this file correctly, and so somehow isn't in the right scope when it gets to the visit block. Carefully pick apart your Capy spec to figure out where you introduced it.

I induced the kernal panic today but have a let block be called page (whoops). page appears to be a reserved word for Rspec or Capy here, and it causes the kernal panic, thus leading to the spec not to parse thus leading to the visit method not being found.

in my case, it was simply changing this:

let(:page) {Page.new()} 

to

let(:content_page) {Page.new()} 

Notice that the word page is not reserved by Rails, and works fine as a database name and also a model name, but the specific construction of using page here as the let variable name seemed to cause Capy to get kind of crappy.

Answer 3

Adding require 'rails_helper' at the top of my feature ended up fixing my problem:

require 'rails_helper'

describe "security", :type => :feature do

  it "signs users in" do
    visit new_sessions_path
    fill_in "username", :with => "user"
    fill_in "password", :with => "pass"
    click_button "Sign In"

    page.should have_content('Login Successful')
  end
end

This seems odd to me since every example I've seen for rspec and capybara didn't have that require, but oh well. Problem solved.

Original Answer (older versions of rspec)

require 'spec_helper' is used by older versions of RSpec. The better answer would be require 'rails_helper'.

Answer 4

I also had this problem,

Adding require 'rails_helper' at the top of my feature ended up fixing my problem:

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe "Products", type: :request do
 describe "GET /products" do
 it "display tasks" do
  Product.create!(:name => "samsung")
  visit products_path
  page.should have_content("samsung")
  #expect(response).to have_http_status(200)
  end
 end
end

And add the 'config.include Capybara::DSL' in rails_helper.rb

RSpec.configure do |config|

 config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"

 config.use_transactional_fixtures = true

 config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!

 config.include Capybara::DSL

end

Answer 5

Since Capybara 2.0 one has to use folder spec/features Capybara commands don't work in folder spec/requests anymore.

Answer 6

Try performing all your setup in a before block:

spec/features/security_spec.rb

describe "security" do
  before do
    visit "/sessions/new"
    fill_in "username", :with => "user"
    fill_in "password", :with => "pass"
    click_button "Sign In"
  end

  it "signs users in" do
    page.should have_content('Login Successful')
  end
end

Answer 7

Try to add:

  config.include Capybara::DSL

to your config block.

# This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install'
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'rspec/autorun'

# Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
# in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config|
  # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures
  # config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true
  config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = false
  config.order = "random"
  # Include path helpers
  config.include Rails.application.routes.url_helpers

  config.include Capybara::DSL

end