RSpec refactoring - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm new to Ruby, Rails and RSpec, so I'm doing the railstutorial. In Chapter 10, exercise 1, I've implemented a test for micropost pluralization that I'm trying to refactor.
My first try was:
describe "micropost pluralization" do
let(:new_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
before do
sign_in new_user
visit root_path
end
describe "with no microposts" do
it "should have no microposts" do
expect(page).to have_text("0 microposts")
end
end
describe "with one micropost" do
before do
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Lorem ipsum")
visit root_path
end
it "should have one micropost" do
expect(page).to have_text("1 micropost")
end
end
describe "with two microposts" do
before do
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Lorem ipsum")
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Dolor sit amet")
visit root_path
end
it "should have two microposts" do
expect(page).to have_text("2 microposts")
end
end
end
This clearly violates the DRY principle. As this test case describes a sequence, I tried to refactor by nesting:
describe "micropost pluralization" do
let(:new_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
before do
sign_in new_user
visit root_path
end
it "should have no microposts" do
expect(page).to have_text("0 microposts")
end
describe "when one micropost is created" do
before do
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Lorem ipsum")
visit root_path
end
it "should have one micropost" do
expect(page).to have_text("1 micropost")
end
describe "and then another micropost is created" do
before do
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Dolor sit amet")
visit root_path
end
it "should have two microposts" do
expect(page).to have_text("2 microposts")
end
end
end
end
But I'm still repeating the "visit root_path" line, and that nesting looks ugly.
My questions are:
1 - Is there a better way than nesting to describe a sequence in RSpec? I tried mixing the creation of microposts and the assertions and didn't work.
2 - How could I remove the "visit root_path" duplication?
Thanks for reading this far!

Answer 1

You could try using shared_example_groups:
shared_examples_for 'page with n microposts' do |number_of_posts, expected_text|
before do
number_of_posts.times do
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: "Lorem ipsum")
end
visit root_path
end
it "should have correct text" do
expect(page).to have_text(expected_text)
end
end
it_should_behave_like 'page with n microposts', 0, '0 microposts'
it_should_behave_like 'page with n microposts', 1, '1 micropost'
it_should_behave_like 'page with n microposts', 2, '2 microposts'

Answer 2

I would personally make just a helper method to extract my logic for creation of objects.Here is the code and a better solution would be to pull create_microposts in a helper module to be included in your tests.I use context which describe clearly my expectations and that those are just similar tests, connected to each other.
describe "micropost pluralization" do
def create_microposts(microposts)
microposts.each do |micropost|
FactoryGirl.create(:micropost, user: new_user, content: micropost)
end
end
let(:new_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
before do
sign_in new_user
create_microposts microposts
visit root_path
end
context "when no microposts exist for user" do
let(:microposts) { [] }
it { is_expected.to have_text("0 microposts") }
end
context "when one micropost is created" do
let(:microposts) { ["Lorem ipsum"] }
it { is_expected.to have_text("1 microposts") }
end
context "when two micropost are created" do
let(:microposts) { ["Lorem ipsum", "Dolor sit amet"] }
it { is_expected.to have_text("2 microposts") }
end
end

Answer 3

In order to avoid nesting to describe sequences in RSpec you might want to check out contexts. As was pointed out in the comment to my answer, you cannot remove the duplicity of the visit_root_path due to the fact that the various test cases need different prerequisites (i.e. one needs 1 post to be created, the other needs 2).
I'd write this test suite like so:
describe 'micropost pluralization' do
let :new_user { create :user }
before :all do
sign_in new_user
end
context 'no microposts' do
it 'should have no microposts' do
visit_root_path
expect(page).to have_text('0 microposts')
end
end
context 'one or more microposts' do
# you could have a before :each here do create the posts, but
# since you only have two test cases I don't feel it's necessary.
it 'should have one micropost' do
create :micropost, user: new_user, content: 'Lorem ipsum'
visit_root_path
expect(page).to have_text('1 micropost')
end
it 'should have two microposts' do
2.times.do { create :micropost, user: new_user, content: 'Lorem ipsum' }
visit_root_path
expect(page).to have_text('2 microposts')
end
end # end context
end # end describe
It might not look perfectly DRY, but it certainly looks readable to me.
I cannot recommend betterspecs enough for test writing by the way :-)