Ruby Forum RSpec > description method and test failures

Hi all,

Hoping you can help.  I have a project using rspec 1.1.3 and rails
2.0.2.  I've run into a small problem.  Said project has a method in
application_helper.rb named "description".  Whenever a spec test
fails, I see a message like so:

*snip*/vendor/plugins/rspec/lib/spec/runner/reporter.rb:37:in
`description': wrong number of arguments (0 for 2) (ArgumentError)

It just so happens that my description method takes 2 arguments.  It
seems that this method is clashing with one of the methods in rspec.
Is there a workaround for this situation?  It's a pain to have to
rename my method everytime I want to see a proper failure message from
rspec.

I'm attaching a full backtrace run with --trace.

Thanks,

e.
--
ericw@xmtp.net

"If the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence!"
                         -- Pop Will Eat Itself, "Ich Bin Ein Auslander"

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 1:17 AM, EAW <ericw@xmtp.net> wrote:
>  It just so happens that my description method takes 2 arguments.  It seems
> that this method is clashing with one of the methods in rspec.  Is there a
> workaround for this situation?  It's a pain to have to rename my method
> everytime I want to see a proper failure message from rspec.
>
>  I'm attaching a full backtrace run with --trace.

If the first argument to describe() is a module it gets included in
the resulting example group. To avoid this, just make it a String:

describe 'MyHelperModule' do
  ...
end

In the next release there is a helper object you can use in your
helper examples:

describe HelperModule do
  it "should describe something by default" do
    helper.description.should == "something"
  end
end

In some future release, that is the only way it will work as we will
no longer include the module in the example group. That might be a way
off though.

Cheers,
David

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 2:17 AM, EAW <ericw@xmtp.net> wrote:

> It seems that this method is clashing with one of the methods in rspec.  Is
> there a workaround for this situation?  It's a pain to have to rename my
> method everytime I want to see a proper failure message from rspec.


Not to be glib, but you could just rename it one time. :)

Seriously though, 'description' is an awfully generically named method 
to
have exposed to every view in your app.  Is that the best name for it?

I followed your advice, with one slight addition.  Inside of my
describe block I included the ApplicationHelper manually, so that I
could call the methods in it.  Everything is working fine now.

Thanks for your help.

e.

On May 14, 2008, at 6:44 AM, David Chelimsky wrote:

>> *snip*/vendor/plugins/rspec/lib/spec/runner/reporter.rb:37:in
>> I'm attaching a full backtrace run with --trace.
>
> Cheers,
>>            -- Pop Will Eat Itself, "Ich Bin Ein Auslander"
> rspec-users mailing list
> rspec-users@rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users

--
ericw@xmtp.net

"If the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence!"
             -- Pop Will Eat Itself, "Ich Bin Ein Auslander"