Specing a manual call to valid? - ruby-on-rails

Question

Hey all, I am completely lost on this one.
I found a code snippet online to help validate fields via ajax as the user types into them. So I'm trying to write a spec against part of it and I just can't get it to pass.
Here's the code
def validate
field = params[:field]
user = User.new(field => params[:value])
output = ""
user.valid?
if user.errors[field] != nil
if user.errors[field].class == String
output = "#{field.titleize} #{user.errors[field]}"
else
output = "#{field.titleize} #{user.errors[field].to_sentence}"
end
end
render :text => output
end
and here is my test so far
describe "POST validate" do
it "retrieves the user based on the past in username" do
mock_errors ||= mock("errors")
mock_errors.stub!(:[]).and_return(nil)
User.should_receive(:new).with({'username'=>"UserName"}).and_return(mock_user)
mock_user.should_receive(:valid?).and_return(true)
mock_errors.should_receive(:[]).with("username").and_return(nil)
put :validate, :field=>'username', :value=>'UserName'
response.should == ""
end
end
I get this error -
1) Spec::Mocks::MockExpectationError
in 'UsersController POST validate
retrieves the user based on the past
in username' Mock 'errors' received
unexpected message :[] with
("username")
I can't seem to figure out how in the world to mock the call to user.errors[field]. Ideally this spec tests the happy path, no errors. I'll then write another for a validation failure.

Answer 1

I'm not seeing mock_user. Here's a shot at it:
describe "POST validate" do
it "retrieves the user based on the past in username" do
mock_errors = mock("errors")
mock_user = mock("user")
mock_user.stub!(:errors).and_return([mock_errors])
mock_errors.stub!(:[]).and_return(nil)
User.should_receive(:new).with({'username'=>"UserName"}).and_return(mock_user)
mock_user.should_receive(:valid?).and_return(true)
mock_errors.should_receive(:[]).with("username").and_return(ActiveRecord::Errors.new({}))
put :validate, :field=>'username', :value=>'UserName'
response.should == ""
end
end
The key is that you need your User mock to respond to the errors method by returning either an empty hash or a hash of fieldname/errors. An alternative to this is to use one of the fixture replacement tools. I'm using machinist right now, which might reduce this whole thing to:
describe "POST validate" do
it "retrieves the user based on the past in username" do
#user = User.make{'username'=>"UserName"}
#user.should_receive(:valid?).and_return(true)
#user.errors.should_receive(:[]).with("username").and_return(ActiveRecord::Errors.new({}))
put :validate, :field=>'username', :value=>'UserName'
response.should == ""
end
end