Rails response.should be_success is never true - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am following Michael Hartl's excellent tutorial on Ruby on Rails. I'm stuck trying to understand the way ActionDispatch::Response works. This derives from Exercise 9 of Chapter 9 (Rails version 3.2.3).
In particular we're asked to make sure that the admin user is unable to User#destroy himself. I have an idea how to do that, but since I'm trying to follow a TDD methodology, I'm first writing the tests.
This is the relevant snippet in my test:
describe "authorization" do
describe "as non-admin user" do
let(:admin) {FactoryGirl.create(:admin)}
let(:non_admin) {FactoryGirl.create(:user)}
before{valid_signin non_admin}
describe "submitting a DELETE request to the Users#destroy action" do
before do
delete user_path(admin)
#puts response.message
puts response.succes?
end
specify{ response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
specify{ response.should_not be_success }
end
end
#Exercise 9.6-9 prevent admin from destroying himself
describe "as admin user" do
let(:admin){FactoryGirl.create(:admin)}
let(:non_admin){FactoryGirl.create(:user)}
before do
valid_signin admin
end
it "should be able to delete another user" do
expect { delete user_path(non_admin) }.to change(User, :count).by(-1)
end
describe "can destroy others" do
before do
puts admin.admin?
delete user_path(non_admin)
puts response.success?
end
#specify{response.should be_success}
specify{response.should_not be_redirect}
end
describe "cannot destroy himself" do
before do
delete user_path(admin)
puts response.success?
end
#specify{response.should_not be_success}
specify{response.should be_redirect}
end
end
.
.
.
end
All the tests pass except the "can destroy others" test.
However, if I puts response.success? after every delete request, I always get False, so none of the requests "succeed".
Manually interacting with the webapp and deleting users works just fine, so I assume that response.success does not mean that the detroy(or whatever request for that matter) was not successful, but something else. I read it has to do with the difference between HTTP responses 200/302/400, but I'm not totally sure.
For the record, this is my User#destroy:
def destroy
User.find(params[:id]).destroy
flash[:success]="User destroyed."
redirect_to users_path
end
Any light on this?
thanks!
Edit
This is my factory:
FactoryGirl.define do
factory :user do
sequence(:name){ |n| "Person #{n}" }
sequence(:email){ |n| "person_#{n}#example.com"}
password "foobar"
password_confirmation "foobar"
factory :admin do
admin true
end
end
end
Edit 2 as suggested by #Peter Alfvin, I changed lines
let(:user){FactoryGirl.create(:user)}
to
let(:admin){FactoryGirl.create(:admin)}
And all user to admin in general. I also added a puts admin.admin? before the delete request. Still not working!
Edit 3
Changing the test "can destroy others" as:
describe "can destroy others" do
before do
puts admin.admin?
delete user_path(non_admin)
puts response.success?
end
#specify{response.should be_success}
specify{response.should_not be_redirect}
end
Does not seem to help either.

Answer 1

For your "admin" case, you're still creating and logging in as a "regular" user instead of an admin user, which is why you can't destroy anyone else.

Answer 2

response.success does indeed refer to the HTTP response code. By default, I believe this is anything in the 200 range. redirect_to is in the 300 range.

Answer 3

Make sure your user Factory includes this line
factory :user do
#your user factory code
factory :admin do
admin true
end
end
Then FactoryGirl.create(:admin) will return an admin user or you can also use user.toggle!(:admin) which will switch a standard user to an admin user.
try this then
describe "as admin user" do
let(:admin){FactoryGirl.create(:admin)}
let(:non_admin){FactoryGirl.create(:user)}
before do
valid_signin admin
end
it "should be able to delete another user" do
expect { delete user_path(non_admin) }.to change(User, :count).by(-1)
end
it "can destroy others" do #
before do
puts admin.admin?
delete user_path(non_admin)
puts response.success?
end
#specify{response.should be_success}
specify{response.should_not be_redirect}
end
it "cannot destroy himself" do
before do
delete user_path(admin)
puts response.success?
end
#specify{response.should_not be_success}
specify{response.should be_redirect}
end
end
describe creates a magic Class it becomes a subClass of the describe class from my understanding. Rails has a lot of this magic and it can get confusing. Also I have not seen your controller but what are you expecting to happen when you destroy a user because if you followed the tutorial then there will be a redirect delete sent through the browser will call your destroy method in the UsersController which in the tutorial has this line redirect_to users_url so response.should_not be_redirect will always fail because the spec is wrong not the controller.