Rspec integration: param is missing or empty - ruby-on-rails

Question

I've got this Rails 4 controller like this:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
before_action :set_user, only: [:edit, :update, :delete]
# ...
api :POST, '/users', "Creates a new user"
param :username, String, :required => true, :desc => "Desired username"
param :email, /[a-zA-Z0-9\-.]+\#[a-zA-Z0-9\-.]+\.[a-z]{2,}/, :required => true, :desc => "User's e-mail address"
param :password, String, :required => true, :desc => "SHA256(username:password), hex encoded"
param :screenname, String, :required => true, :desc => "Publicly visible name"
param :avatar, String, :required => true, :desc => "Uploaded avatar filename"
error :code => 422, :desc => "Unprocessable entity"
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #user.save
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: #user }
else
format.json { render json: #user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
# ...
private
# ...
def user_params
params.require(:user).permit(:username, :email, :password, :screenname)
end
end
and then I have a rspec test like this
describe "POST /users.json" do
let!(:daniel_attrs) { FactoryGirl.attributes_for(:user, username: "daniel", email: "daniel#bigbob.com", password: "999d53a384afd57ebc36986fe9455c6e941cd844467e28f975289845d6e984ee", screenname: 'Daniel', avatar: "default.png") }
before :each do |example|
post '/users.json', daniel_attrs
end
# ...
end
which fails like this
1) Users API POST /users.json creates the user with the right parameters
Failure/Error: post '/users.json', daniel_attrs
ActionController::ParameterMissing:
param is missing or the value is empty: user
# ./app/controllers/users_controller.rb:155:in `user_params'
# ./app/controllers/users_controller.rb:72:in `create'
# ./spec/requests/usersapi_spec.rb:85:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
What I'm not clear on is why would the controller even require a 'user' key in the request, since if I forge a request (via curl, postman, whatever) and I only include a json representation of my attributes, it creates the object correctly. If anyway I provide the key (as in :user => daniel_attrs) the test fails like this
1) Users API POST /users.json creates the user with the right parameters
Failure/Error: post '/users.json', :user => daniel_attrs
Apipie::ParamMissing:
Missing parameter username
# ./spec/requests/usersapi_spec.rb:85:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
and I know for a fact (because I used let! and because I printed it out) that daniel_attrs has all the keys and values at the right places.
I'm sure I'm missing something very obvious, I haven't been at rails testing for a veeery long time. So, what is it that I'm missing?
EDIT: generally, it would be massively helpful to inspect requests before they get performed. Is there any way to do this?
EDIT 2: Works when modifying the apipie definition like this
api :POST, '/users', "Creates a new user"
param :user, Hash, :required => true do
param :username, String, :required => true, :desc => "Desired username"
param :email, /[a-zA-Z0-9\-.]+\#[a-zA-Z0-9\-.]+\.[a-z]{2,}/, :required => true, :desc => "User's e-mail address"
param :password, String, :required => true, :desc => "SHA256(username:password), hex encoded"
param :screenname, String, :required => true, :desc => "Publicly visible name"
param :avatar, String, :required => true, :desc => "Uploaded avatar filename"
end
error :code => 422, :desc => "Unprocessable entity"
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #user.save
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: #user }
else
format.json { render json: #user.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end

Answer 1

This is because of user_params method of your controller.
I think you can try this :
def user_params
params.permit(:username, :email, :password, :screenname)
end
Edit : Sorry I missed a part of your post, so you know the problem is because of 'user' key.
If you want to keep the user key, you can try the following syntax ( I tried it and it works )
post :create, user: daniel_attrs
Hope this helps.