CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsrspec
William
William

Reputation: 1315

How can one test session features in helper modules in Rails?

I have a helper which has some logic for controlling the display of a partial :

module BannerHelper
  def show_add_friend_link?
    !current_page(friends_path) && !current_user.has_friends?
  end
end

require 'rails_helper'

describe BannerHelper do
  context 'when user has friends'
    it 'does not show the add friends link' do
      expect(helper.show_add_friend_link?).to eq false
    end
  end
end

I'm trying to create a test (using rspec 3.2) but current_user isn't defined. I have been able to use current_user from controller tests. current_user is defined in application_controller. Perhaps current_user shouldn't be referred to from a helper though I am not sure where to place this logic.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 789

Answers (2)

Epigene
Epigene

Reputation: 3928

I have solved this by abandoning RSpec's helper test features and instead testing helper modules within the controller test ecosystem. Doing so provides access to the request and session objects, as well as other helper methods.

Here is an example:

describe BannerHelper, type: :controller do
  controller(ApplicationController) do
    include BannerHelper
  end

  describe "#show_add_friend_link?" do
    context 'when user has friends'
      it 'does not show the add friends link' do
        allow(subject).to receive(:current_user).and_return(some_user)
        # note that instead of ^ mock you can also simply set needed session key as it is accessible.

         expect(subject.send(:show_add_friend_link?)).to eq false
      end
    end
  end

end

Upvotes: 0

Simone Carletti
Simone Carletti

Reputation: 176552

You have two options.

  1. Since the RSpec group that described an Helper mixes the helper module into itself, you can define the current_user as method inside the example.

    describe BannerHelper do
  context 'when user has friends'
    let(:current_user) { instance_double("User", has_friends: true) }
    it 'does not show the add friends link' do
      expect(show_add_friend_link?).to eq false
    end
  end
end

  2. Use dependency injection, and change the helper method to accept the current_user as parameter.

Upvotes: 2

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