RSpec testing with followerships / friendships has many through users - ruby-on-rails

Question

I inspired myself with the following link, http://railscasts.com/episodes/163-self-referential-association, but the rspec testing is not coming easy.
user model:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
# Associations
has_many :followerships
has_many :followers, :through => :followerships
has_many :inverse_followerships, :class_name => "Followership", :foreign_key => "follower_id"
has_many :inverse_followers, :through => :inverse_followerships, :source => :user
end
followership model:
class Followership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :follower, :class_name => "User"
end
followerhip factory:
FactoryGirl.define do
factory :followership do
user_id 1
follower_id 1
end
end
followerships controller:
class FollowershipsController < InheritedResources::Base
def create
#followership = current_user.followerships.build(:follower_id => params[:follower_id])
if #followership.save
flash[:notice] = "Following."
redirect_to root_url
else
flash[:error] = "Unable to follow."
redirect_to root_url
end
end
def destroy
#followership = current_user.followerships.find(params[:id])
#followership.destroy
flash[:notice] = "Removed followership."
redirect_to current_user
end
end
folowerships controller spec (this is all wrong):
require 'rails_helper'
describe FollowershipsController do
let!(:followership) { create(:followership) }
let!(:follower) { followership.follower }
let!(:user) { create(:user) }
before do
sign_in :user, user
end
describe "#create" do
it "saves the followership" do
post :create, followership: { follower_id: follower }
expect(response).to redirect_to(root_path)
expect(assigns(:followership).followership.followers).to eq(user)
expect(flash[:notice]).to eq("Following.")
end
it "fails to save followership" do
expect(post :create, followership: { follower_id: follower }).to redirect_to(root_path)
expect(flash[:notice]).to eq("Unable to follow.")
end
end
describe "#destroy" do
it "deletes the followership" do
expect {
delete :destroy, id: follower
}.to change(Followership, :count).by(-1)
expect(flash[:notice]).to eq("Removed followership.")
end
end
end
Error from followerships controller Rspec
FollowershipsController
#destroy
deletes the followership (FAILED - 1)
#create
saves the followership (FAILED - 2)
fails to save followership (FAILED - 3)
Failures:
1) FollowershipsController#destroy deletes the followership
Failure/Error: delete :destroy, id: follower
ActionController::UrlGenerationError:
No route matches {:action=>"destroy", :controller=>"followerships", :id=>nil}
2) FollowershipsController#create saves the followership
Failure/Error: expect(assigns(:followership).followership.followers).to eq(user)
NoMethodError:
undefined method `followership' for #<Followership:0x00000109f69780>
3) FollowershipsController#create fails to save followership
Failure/Error: expect(flash[:notice]).to eq("Unable to follow.")
expected: "Unable to follow."
got: "Following."
(compared using ==)
Thanks for the help :)

Answer 1

The let command uses lazy evaluation, so these records are not actually created until called. Use the let! syntax to ensure they're created before your tests run:
let!(:followership) { create(:followership) }
let!(:follower) { followership.follower }
let!(:user) { create(:user) }
Make sure your validations also only allow creation of a following if it doesn't already exist for that pair of users:
class Followership < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, scope: :follower_id
Also, it's not guaranteed that the follower/followership relationships will belong to user since user doesn't necessarily have an id of 1.
Finally, assigns is a method, so the syntax should be assigns(:followership) not assigns[:followership]