How to stub ApplicationController method in request specification

Question

I need to drown out the response of the current_user method in the Rspec / capybara request specification. The method is defined in ApplicationController and uses helper_method. The method should simply return the user id. As part of the test, I would like this method to return the same user ID every time.

Alternatively, I could fix my problem by setting session[:user_id] to spec (which returns current_user ) ... but this also doesn't work.

Are any of these options possible?

Edit:

Here is what I got (it doesn't work, it just runs the regular current_user method).

 require 'spec_helper' describe "Login" do before(:each) do ApplicationController.stub(:current_user).and_return(User.first) end it "logs in" do visit '/' page.should have_content("Hey there user!") end end 

Also does not work:

 require 'spec_helper' describe "Login" do before(:each) do @mock_controller = mock("ApplicationController") @mock_controller.stub(:current_user).and_return(User.first) end it "logs in" do visit '/' page.should have_content("Hey there user!") end end 

Answer 1

skalee seems to have given the correct answer in the comment.

If the method you are trying to stub is an instance method (most likely) and not a class method, then you need to use:

ApplicationController.any_instance.stub(:current_user)

Answer 2

Here are some examples of the basic form.

 controller.stub(:action_name).and_raise([some error]) controller.stub(:action_name).and_return([some value]) 

In your particular case, I believe that the correct form is:

 controller.stub(:current_user).and_return([your user object/id]) 

Here is a complete working example of a project I'm working on:

 describe PortalsController do it "if an ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken is raised the user should be redirected to login" do controller.stub(:index).and_raise(ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken) get :index flash[:notice].should eql("Your session has expired.") response.should redirect_to(portals_path) end end 

To explain my complete example, this basically means that when an ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken error ActionController::InvalidAuthenticityToken , a flash message appears anywhere in the application and the user is redirected to the action portals_controller#index . You can use these forms to display and return specific values, check an instance of a given error, etc. There are several .stub(:action_name).and_[do_something_interesting]() methods available.

---

Refresh (after adding the code): for my comment, change your code so that it reads:

 require 'spec_helper' describe "Login" do before(:each) do @mock_controller = mock("ApplicationController") @mock_controller.stub(:current_user).and_return(User.first) end it "logs in" do visit '/' page.should have_content("Hey there user!") end end 

Answer 3

This works for me and gives me the @current_user variable for use in tests.

I have an assistant that looks like this:

 def bypass_authentication current_user = FactoryGirl.create(:user) ApplicationController.send(:alias_method, :old_current_user, :current_user) ApplicationController.send(:define_method, :current_user) do current_user end @current_user = current_user end def restore_authentication ApplicationController.send(:alias_method, :current_user, :old_current_user) end 

And then in my specification requests, I call:

 before(:each){bypass_authentication} after(:each){restore_authentication} 

Answer 4

For those who might need to drown out the application controller method that installs ivar (and was drowned out by endless wanking about why you shouldn't do this) here, a method that works with Rspec flavor around October 2013.

 before(:each) do campaign = Campaign.create! ApplicationController.any_instance.stub(:load_campaign_singleton) controller.instance_eval{@campaign = campaign} @campaign = campaign end 

it locks the method to do nothing, and installs ivar on the rspec controller instance and makes it available for testing like @campaign.

Answer 5

None of the answers provided worked for me. As in the original post @ matt-fordam, I have a request specification, not a controller specification. The test simply displays the view without starting the controller.

I solved this by imposing a method on the view as described in this other SO post

 view.stub(:current_user).and_return(etc)