Correct spec for a scoped controller

Testing RSpec
1

In almost all my controllers I scope everything through an @account
model object, e.g:

#teams_controller.rb
def new
@team = @account.teams.build
end

So far I have got passing specs using these:

describe TeamsController do
let(:account) { Account.new }

before(:each) do
Account.stub!(:find_by_subdomain!).and_return(account)
account.stub!(:teams)
end

describe “GET new” do
let(:team) { Team.new(“account_id” => account.id) }

before(:each) do
  account.teams.should_receive(:build).and_return(team)
end

it "assigns @team to a new scoped instance of Team" do
  get :new
  assigns[:team].should eq(team)
end

it "renders the new template" do
  get :new
  response.should render_template("new")
end

end
end

I am interested to know if this is best practice for scoping everything
through an existing model object.

2

On Sep 7, 2010, at 6:01 AM, Cameron C. wrote:

describe TeamsController do
before(:each) do
response.should render_template(“new”)
end
end
end

I am interested to know if this is best practice for scoping everything
through an existing model object.

That’s a lot of noise for two simple examples. I’d either just use AR
(no stubs) or add a build_team method to Account. I also prefer to keep
message expectations (should_receive) in the examples that specify the
expectation. In the spec above “renders the new template” would fail for
the wrong reason if the other example failed. I also like to keep the
let() statements near each other since they’re eval’d lazily (makes it
easier to find them).

That would lead me to something like:

describe TeamsController do
let(:account) { stub_model(Account).as_null_object }
let(:team) { stub_model(Team) }

before(:each) do
Account.stub(:find_by_subdomain!) { account }
end

describe “GET new” do
it “assigns @team to a new scoped instance of Team” do
account.should_receive(:build_team) { team }
get :new
assigns(:team).should eq(team)
end

it "renders the new template" do
  get :new
  response.should render_template("new")
end

end
end

HTH,
David