Keeping user in the database between tests using Capybara? - ruby-on-rails

Question

My issue is that I have to create a new user and login for each individual capybara test.
An example is below:
require 'spec_helper'
describe "users" do
describe "user registration" do
it "should create a new user and log in" do
# Register a new user to be used during the testing process
visit signup_path
fill_in 'Email', with: 'testuser'
fill_in 'Password', with: 'testpass'
fill_in 'Password confirmation', with: 'testpass'
click_button 'Create User'
current_path.should == root_path
page.should have_content 'Thank you for signing up!'
end
end
describe "user login" do
it "should log in" do
# log in
visit login_path
fill_in 'Email', with: 'testuser'
fill_in 'Password', with: 'testpass'
click_button 'Log In'
current_path.should == root_path
page.should have_content 'Logged in!'
end
end
end
The login test fails because the user no longer exists in the database for that test.
This could be fixed simply by putting both in one test, but I believe that is bad practice.
Also I have another file which currently is registering and logging in between each test using a before_do, which also seems to be quite bad... you can see that code here.
For the record this is my first rails app so perhaps I am trying to do this the wrong way. I would like to dry it up as much as possible..
Is capybara really this bad to use on pages that require user login?

Answer 1

I have done it this way.
require "spec_helper"
describe "Users" do
subject { page }
describe "User Registration" do
before { visit signup_path }
let(:submit) { "Sign up" }
describe "with invalid information" do
it "should not create a user" do
expect { click_button submit }.not_to change(User, :count)
end
end
describe "with valid information" do
before do
fill_in "Email", with: "user#example.com"
fill_in "Password", with: "foobar12"
fill_in "Password confirmation", with: "foobar12"
end
it "should create a user" do
expect { click_button submit }.to change(User, :count).by(1)
end
describe "after registration" do
before { click_button submit }
it { should have_content 'Thank you for signing up!' }
end
describe "after registration signout and login" do
let(:user) { User.find_by_email('user#example.com') }
before do
click_button submit
visit signout_path
sign_in user # sign_in is a method which u can define in your spec/support/utilities.rb . Define once and use at multiple places.
end
it { should have_content 'Logged In!' }
it { should have_link('Logout') }
end
end
end
end
# spec/support/utilities.rb
def sign_in(user)
visit sign_path
fill_in "Email", with: user.email
fill_in "Password", with: user.password
click_button "Log in"
end
your every describe and it block will run after the before block in parent that's why we need to click_button in every block in above test cases.