How to upload a file in a Rails Rspec request spec - ruby-on-rails

Question

I want to test uploading a file in a Rails Rspec request test. I'm using Paperclip for asset storage.
I've tried:
path = 'path/to/fixture_file'
params = { file: Rack::Test::UploadedFile.new(path, 'application/pdf', true) }
post v1_product_documents_path, params: params
In the controller, I get a string
"#Rack::Test::UploadedFile:0x0055b544479128>"
instead of the actual file.
The same code works in controller tests

Answer 1

try to use fixture_file_upload:
fixture_file_upload
or
if you wanted to use this in a factory
Rack::Test::UploadedFile.new(File.open(File.join(Rails.root, '/spec/fixtures/images/bob-weir.jpg')))

Answer 2

In rails_helper.rb do
include ActionDispatch::TestProcess
include Rack::Test::Methods
Then you have few options.
1. You can use fixture_file_upload helper
let(:file) { fixture_file_upload('files/image.jpg') }
it 'it should work' do
post some_path, params: { uploads: { file: file } }
end
You can use Uploaded file but you have to give full path
let(:file) { Rack::Test::UploadedFile.new(Rails.root.join('spec',
'fixtures', 'blank.jpg'), 'image/jpg') }
let(:params) { { attachment: file, variant_ids: ['', product.master.id] } }
let(:action) { post :create, product_id: product.slug, image: params }

Answer 3

For rails 6 no need to do includes, just fixture_file_upload. If you are using spec/fixtures/files folder for fixtures you can use file_fixture helper
let(:csv_file) { fixture_file_upload(file_fixture('file_example.csv')) }
subject(:http_request) { post upload_file_path, params: { file: csv_file } }

Answer 4

Under describe block, include these modules
include Rack::Test::Methods
include ActionDispatch::TestProcess
Now try running the specs
path = 'path/to/fixture_file'
params = { "file" => Rack::Test::UploadedFile.new(path, 'application/pdf', true) }
post v1_product_documents_path, params: params
Also, I guess you forgot to add , between v1_product_documents_path and params: params, please add that and let me know.
Hope that helps!

Answer 5

Might be useful for other users: I got this problem because I mistakenly used a get instead of a post request in my specs.

Answer 6

For others still getting something like "#Rack::Test::UploadedFile:0x0055b544479128>" in the controller after implementing the approved solution above, I resolved this by changing my content-type header to be 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' so that form data would be accepted.

Answer 7

file = File.expand_path("path/to/fixture_file", __dir__)
Rack::Test::UploadedFile.new(file, 'application/pdf')

Answer 8

If you need the content type in your RSpec test, it seems you can pass it as an argument to fixture_file_upload (no idea why this method does not derive the content type from the OS).
For instance:
fixture_file_upload("pdfs/some.pdf", "application/pdf")

Answer 9

I ran into this issue while writing request specs for a POST endpoint that processes incoming email payloads that include file attachments.
this is what the request looked like in the request spec:
post api_v1_email_processor_path, params: params, as: :json
where params[:attachment] was:
fixture_file_upload("spec/support/fixtures/files/report.csv", 'text/csv',)
and when I added some breakpoints in the controller, this is what the attachment was being converted into:
{"original_filename"=>"report.csv", "tempfile"=>"#<File:0x0000000121d2bfc8>", "content_type"=>"text/csv"}
as you can see, the "tempfile" was being cast to a string value of "<File:0x0000000121d2bfc8>"
when I emulated the same request in a controller spec, to my huge confusion, there was no casting, and the breakpoint showed the param (correctly) as:
#<ActionDispatch::Http::UploadedFile:0x000000012d559488 #tempfile=#<Tempfile:/var/folders/jg/n_0rknb97kvddb0jgh6r3_x40000gn/T/RackMultipart20221008-45122-mzyqg5.csv>, #original_filename="report.csv", #content_type="text/csv", #headers="Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"attachment1\"; filename=\"report.csv\"\r\nContent-Type: text/csv\r\nContent-Length: 24931\r\n">]
after seeing L.Youl's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/67987482/14926068, it got me thinking that the issue was with how the request payload was being formatted, prior to being sent to the server through the Rack middleware. and so I tried taking off the as: :json:
post api_v1_email_processor_path, params: params
and bingo, I got the same result as with the controller spec.
after inspecting response.request.content_type in my request spec, I found that when I took the as: :json off, its value changed from "application/json" to
"multipart/form-data; boundary=----------XnJLe9ZIbbGUYtzPQJ16u1"
for completeness, I checked response.request.content_type in the controller spec as well, and found that even with as: :json in the request, the content_type was being set to "multipart/form-data", and that accounted for the discrepancy in behavior between controller and request specs - it seems that as: :json only affects the "content-type" in the request specs.
in retrospect, it was obvious - json cannot be used to send actual files. but it took me a long time to figure it out because the equivalent controller spec was working fine and this was literally the only endpoint in my Rails api-only app that expected non-json payloads