RSpec-rails-capybara - different failures with :js => true and without - capybara

Question

I'm building a setup screen for billing of individuals. The controller/views are in the Admin namespace.
When run the first test without :js => true I get one failure, which I assume is down to the fact that the link does not work as its a helper which uses a js script to build a nested set of fields (Based on Railscasts Single form, multiple tables - Nested Attributes).
Failures:
1) Patient Setup create patient bill heading - with extended details -with valid data
Failure/Error: fill_in "Extended Bill Heading", :with => 'Regular Registration'
Capybara::ElementNotFound:
cannot fill in, no text field, text area or password field with id, name, or label 'Extended Bill Heading' found
# (eval):2:in `fill_in'
# ./spec/requests/admin/patient_setup_pages_spec.rb:52:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'
Finished in 0.83047 seconds
3 examples, 1 failure, 2 pending
But when I use :js = true, I'm getting a failure which appears to be from the login with Invalid user/password flashing up on the screen when running.
Failures:
1) Patient Setup create patient bill heading - with extended details -with valid data
Failure/Error: click_link 'System'
Capybara::ElementNotFound:
no link with title, id or text 'System' found
# (eval):2:in `click_link'
# ./spec/requests/admin/patient_setup_pages_spec.rb:22:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'
Finished in 6.33 seconds
3 examples, 1 failure, 2 pending
Here is the code that backs all this up.
spec/requests/admin/patient_setup_spec.rb
require 'spec_helper'
feature 'Patient Setup' do
let!(:ci_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user,
name: "configuration engineer",
password: "password",
password_confirmation: "password"
) }
let!(:admin_role) { FactoryGirl.create(:admin_role) }
let!(:assignment) { FactoryGirl.create(:assignment,
:role => admin_role,
:user => ci_user
) }
before do
visit login_path
fill_in "Name", with: "configuration engineer"
fill_in "Password", with: "password"
click_button "Login"
save_and_open_page
click_link 'System'
click_link 'Patient Setup'
end
describe "create patient bill heading" do
before do
click_link 'New Bill Heading'
fill_in 'Bill heading', :with => 'Consultation'
fill_in 'Abbreviation', :with => "CON"
end
context "- no extended details" do
pending
scenario "- with valid data" do
pending
click_button 'Create Patient bill heading'
page.should have_content('Patient Bill Heading created.')
end
end
context "- with extended details", :js => true do #(without :js => true 1st error)
before do
# save_and_open_page
click_link "Extended Bill Heading"
# save_and_open_page
end
scenario "-with valid data" do
save_and_open_page
fill_in "Extended Bill Heading", :with => 'Regular Registration'
end
end
end
end
Here is my factory setup.
spec/factories.rb
FactoryGirl.define do
# Users, Roles
factory :user do
name "Joesephine Bloggs"
password "testmenow"
password_confirmation "testmenow"
end
factory :admin, :class => User do
sequence(:name) { |n| "Administrator-#{n}" }
password "adminiam"
password_confirmation "adminiam"
after(:create) do |user|
FactoryGirl.create(:assignment, :role => FactoryGirl.create(:admin_role), :user => user )
end
end
factory :role do
description { "Clerical-#{rand(99)}" }
factory :admin_role do
description "Admin"
end
end
factory :assignment do
user
role
end
# Patients Module
factory :patient_bill_heading do
sequence(:bill_heading) { |n| "bill-heading-#{n}" }
sequence(:abbreviation) { |n| "abbreviation-#{n}" }
factory :delete_patient_bill_heading, :class => PatientBillHeading do
bill_heading :bill_heading
abbreviation :abbreviation
end
end
end
Here is the link in my view to call the helper that generates the nested attribute fields.
<p>
<%= link_to_add_fields "Extended Bill Heading", f, :patient_extended_bill_headings %>
</p>
And here is the helper.
helpers/application_helper.rb
def link_to_add_fields(name, f, association, options={})
defaults = {
:partial_name => nil
}
options = defaults.merge(options)
new_object = f.object.send(association).klass.new
id = new_object.object_id
fields = f.fields_for(association, new_object, child_index: id) do |builder|
if options[:partial_name].nil?
render(association.to_s.singularize + "_fields", f: builder)
else
render(options[:partial_name], f: builder)
end
end
link_to("#{name} <i class='icon-plus icon-white'></i>".html_safe,
'#',
class: "btn btn-success add_fields",
data: {id: id, fields: fields.gsub("\n", "")}
)
end
I'm trying to improve my RSpec testing knowledge, as I have successfully built this working in my application after an hour trying to figure out why I was getting test failures. So in the app it works, but I want to understand how to make my test pass.
Is my assertion that one error is due to using js to create the link, and capybara is not running it as I don't use the :js => true option?
Can anybody see what I'm doing wrong when using the :js => true option?

Answer 1

You probably have config.use_transactional_fixtures = true in your spec_helper.rb. It doesn't work with Capybara javascript specs because the server and the browser client run on separate threads. Due to the fact that database transactions on the server are not visible to the client, the client has no clue about the user you created in the let!(), therefore the user cannot login to the system.
You need to turn off transactional fixtures and clean your database before/after each run (consider the gem database_cleaner) for your js specs.
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
config.before(:suite) do
DatabaseCleaner.clean_with :truncation
end
config.before(:each) do
if example.metadata[:js]
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
else
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
end
DatabaseCleaner.start
end
config.after(:each) do
DatabaseCleaner.clean
end
end
The above code snippet is taken from the contact manager app readme and slightly modified