How to check if the inside method has been called using RSpec - ruby-on-rails

Question

I got a method to update the person by id:
def update_person(id)
handle_exceptions do
person = Person.find(id)
#...other
end
end
When this id doesn't exist, the handle_exception should be called. But how could I test it? The test I wrote is:
context 'not found the proposals' do
subject {controller.send(:update_person, 3)}
before do
allow(Person).to receive(:find).and_raise(ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound)
allow(subject).to receive(:handle_exceptions)
end
it 'calls handle_exceptions' do
expect(subject).to have_received(:handle_exceptions)
end
end
But it not works, I got a failure said:
Failure/Error: expect(subject).to have_received(:handle_exceptions)
({:message=>"Not Found", :status=>:not_found}).handle_exceptions(*(any args))
expected: 1 time with any arguments
received: 0 times with any arguments
The handle_exceptions method is
def handle_exceptions
yield
rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound => e
flash[:warning] = 'no record found'
Rails.logger.error message: e.message, exception: e
#error_data = { message: 'no record found', status: :not_found }
end

Answer 1

The problem is that you are calling the method under test in the subject block.
subject {controller.send(:update_person, 3)}
This is actually called before the example runs and before the before block.
context 'not found the proposals' do
before do
allow(subject).to receive(:handle_exceptions)
end
it 'calls handle_exceptions' do
controller.send(:update_person, "NOT A VALID ID")
expect(subject).to have_received(:handle_exceptions)
end
end
But as far as tests go this one is not good. You're testing the implementation of update_person and not the actual behavior. And you're calling the method with update_person.send(:update_person, 3) presumably to test a private method.
You should instead test that your controller returns a 404 response code when try to update with an invalid id. Also why you insist on stubbing Person.find is a mystery since you can trigger the exception by just passing an invalid id. Only stub when you actually have to.

Answer 2

After couple days working, I realized the reason I'm confused about it is I didn't figure out about 'who called this function', and I think it's the most important thing to know before test it. For the method like this:
class User::Controller
def methodA
methodB
end
def methodB
// ...
end
The mistake that I made is I thought the methodB is called by methods, but it's not. It's called by the controller, and that's the reason that I can't make the test works. There's so many things need to learn, and I hope there's one day that I won't have a mistake like this and be able to help others.