Hartl Rails Tutorial: Chapter 8 test error "Password should be present"

Question

I am very new to Ruby/Rails and have been working through the Hartl tutorial and I've made it to Chapter 8, but now one of my tests will not pass. The test that fails is as follows:

  test "password should be present (nonblank)" do
    @user.password = @user.password_confirmation = " " * 6
    assert_not @user.valid?
  end

The test outputs the following when I run it:

2) Failure:
UserTest#test_password_should_be_present_(nonblank) [/home/ubuntu/workspace/sample_app/test/models/user_test.rb:61]:
Expected true to be nil or false

This test passed until I ran the line:

$ rails generate migration add_remember_digest_to_users remember_digest:string
$ bundle exec rake db:migrate

I finished the remainder of the chapter and all test failures have been resolved other than the one I mentioned previously. It seems as though this test expects false or nil but my code is returning true for some reason.

Here is my user.rb

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessor :remember_token
  before_save { self.email = email.downcase }
  validates :name,  presence: true, length: { maximum: 50 }
  VALID_EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[\w+\-.]+@[a-z\d\-.]+\.[a-z]+\z/i
  validates :email, presence: true, length: { maximum: 255 },
                    format: { with: VALID_EMAIL_REGEX },
                    uniqueness: { case_sensitive: false }
  has_secure_password
  validates :password, length: { minimum: 6 }

  # Returns the hash digest of the given string.
  def User.digest(string)
    cost = ActiveModel::SecurePassword.min_cost ? BCrypt::Engine::MIN_COST :
                                                  BCrypt::Engine.cost
    BCrypt::Password.create(string, cost: cost)
  end

  # Returns a random token.
  def User.new_token
    SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64
  end

  # Remembers a user in the database for use in persistent sessions.
  def remember
    self.remember_token = User.new_token
    update_attribute(:remember_digest, User.digest(remember_token))
  end

  # Returns true if the given token matches the digest.
  def authenticated?(remember_token)
    return false if remember_digest.nil?
    BCrypt::Password.new(remember_digest).is_password?(remember_token)
  end

  # Forgets a user.
  def forget
    update_attribute(:remember_digest, nil)
  end
end

My users_controller.rb

class UsersController < ApplicationController

  def show
    @user = User.find(params[:id])
  end

  def new
    @user = User.new
  end

  def create
    @user = User.new(user_params)
    if @user.save
      log_in @user
      flash[:success] = "Welcome to the Sample App!"
      redirect_to @user
    else
      render 'new'
    end
  end

  private

    def user_params
      params.require(:user).permit(:name, :email, :password, 
                                   :password_confirmation)
   end
end

My sessions_controller.rb

class SessionsController < ApplicationController
  def new
  end

  def create
    user = User.find_by(email: params[:session][:email].downcase)
    if user && user.authenticate(params[:session][:password])
      log_in user
      params[:session][:remember_me] == '1' ? remember(user) : forget(user)
      redirect_to user
    else
      flash.now[:danger] = 'Invalid email/password combination'
      render 'new'
    end
  end

  def destroy
    log_out if logged_in?
    redirect_to root_url
  end
end

...and lastly my sessions_helper.rb

module SessionsHelper

  # Logs in the given user.
  def log_in(user)
    session[:user_id] = user.id
  end

  # Remembers a user in a persistent session.
  def remember(user)
    user.remember
    cookies.permanent.signed[:user_id] = user.id
    cookies.permanent[:remember_token] = user.remember_token
  end

  # Returns the user corresponding to the remember token cookie.
  def current_user
    if (user_id = session[:user_id])
      @current_user ||= User.find_by(id: user_id)
    elsif (user_id = cookies.signed[:user_id])
      user = User.find_by(id: user_id)
      if user && user.authenticated?(cookies[:remember_token])
        log_in user
        @current_user = user
      end
    end
  end

  # Returns true if the user is logged in, false otherwise.
  def logged_in?
    !current_user.nil?
  end

  # Forgets a persistent session.
  def forget(user)
    user.forget
    cookies.delete(:user_id)
    cookies.delete(:remember_token)
  end

  # Logs out the current user.
  def log_out
    forget(current_user)
    session.delete(:user_id)
    @current_user = nil
  end
end

My apologies if this is a simple mistake, but I am new to these languages and have been scratching my head over this for a while.

Thanks

Answer 1

Try changing your password validation to validates :password, length: { minimum: 6 }, presence: true

Look at section 6.2.2 of the book. Listing 6.9 uses the following code to validate the presence of a name:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, presence: true
end

Michael then goes on to explain that presence: true also requires the name attribute to be something other than a list of spaces which Rails considers to be "blank".