RSpec view tests and url_for

sam — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:46:42 +0000

Ran into a problem with RSpec when trying to create a spec for a view that used an ActionView url helper that required additional parameters to generate the url.

route.edit_page ':site/edit', :conditions => { :method => :get }, :controller => 'webpages', :action => 'edit_page'

The above route sets params[:site] which is later used for url generation (using, edit_page_path). Investigation revealed however that url_for is not actually using params[] to get default values for urls, but actually @request.path_parameters:

ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper.url_for()
  ActionController::Base.url_for()
    ActionController::UrlRewriter.rewrite()
       ActionController::UrlRewriter.rewrite_url()
         ActionController::UrlRewriter.rewrite_path()
           Routing::Routes.generate(options, @request.symbolized_path_parameters)

ViewExampleGroup#render doesn’t provide the facility to add anything to @request.path_parameters, like get/put and friends do in ControllerExampleGroup.

DChelimsky said file a feature request on lighthouse for it, but before I do that I want to do some further investigation and see whether this is needed for nested resources as well, which would make it a more compelling feature, and probably take a stab at patching it myself.

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RSpec view tests and url_for