CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsrubyrspechelper
Connor Shea
Connor Shea

Reputation: 870

Testing a Rails helper method that returns HTML, compare with plain text

I have this Rails helper method that returns text with links inside it:

def add_to_library_event_text(event)
  user_link = link_to(event.user.username, user_path(event.user))
  game_link = link_to(event.game_purchase.game.name, game_path(event.game_purchase.game))

  return user_link + " added " + game_link + " to their library."
end

What I want to do is write a spec for it, to make sure it outputs the right text. I don't care much about the exact details of the HTML, and I'd prefer to do this in a helper spec rather than a feature/browser spec since it's much faster.

I have a working test already, it looks like this:

expect(helper.add_to_library_event_text(add_to_library_event)).to eq \
  "<a href=\"/users/#{user.username}\">#{user.username}</a> added <a href=\"/games/#{game.id}\">#{game.name}</a> to their library."

I'm hoping there's some way that I haven't found yet that will allow me to strip out the HTML from this, so I can write a comparison like this:

expect(helper.add_to_library_event_text(add_to_library_event)).to eq \
  "#{user.username} added #{game.name} to their library."

Is there anything in RSpec/Rails that'd allow me to strip the HTML from this?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1438

Answers (2)

David Hempy
David Hempy

Reputation: 6227

When I want to match particular text within any complex markup (such as HTML), I like to use match or include, something like this:

expect(output).to include "#{user.username} added #{game.name} to their library."

or...

expect(output).to match /#{user.username} added #{game.name} to their library./

This cuts to the essence of what you're testing, and is very resilient to changes in markup, focusing on the content.

Upvotes: 0

Connor Shea
Connor Shea

Reputation: 870

I figured out how to do this! I use strip_tags to strip the HTML from the input string.

expect(
  strip_tags(helper.add_to_library_event_text(game_purchase_library_event))
).to eq "#{user.username} added #{game.name} to their library."

https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/SanitizeHelper.html#method-i-strip_tags

You could also use the sanitize(html_string_goes_here, tags: []) method, but this is simpler as far as I can tell.

Upvotes: 1

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