# \[Fwd: Functional test problem\]

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 15, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451 "2006-06-15T10:53:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/1 "2006-06-15T10:53:38Z")

</div>

Anyone?

-------- Original Message --------  
Subject: Functional test problem  
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:49:03 +0100  
From: Chris T [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
Reply-To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
To: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

Embarrassingly late (apps already well advanced), have decided top get  
to grips with testing and am having a week hopefully covering everything  
I’ve already coded (so far it’s been worth it – found a couple of bugs  
might not have found otherwise).

But having a bit of a prob with a functional test. I’m trying to  
enumerate through through a list of users in a fixtures file, and test  
against each one, but it’s doing something very weird. Here’s the basics  
of the test

def test\_index\_user  
User.find(:all).each do |user|  
get :index, {}, {:user =\> user.id}  
assert\_response :success  
assert\_tag :tag =\> “div”,  
:attributes =\> {  
:id =\> “usermenu”  
},  
:content =\> /Hello\s#{user.login}/  
end  
end

What’s happening is that it’s failing, saying:

expected tag, but no tag found matching {:tag=\>“div”,  
:content=\>/Hello\sarthur/, :attributes=\>{:id=\>“usermenu”}} in:  
…#dump of tags including…

\r\nHello quentin ...
... quentin is the first fixture in users, arthur is the second. It seems like the get :index is not successfully putting the new user id in the session.

Can anyone help me understand what’s going on?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/2 "2006-06-15T15:25:03Z")

</div>

Chris T wrote:

> Anyone?
> 
> -------- Original Message --------  
> def test\_index\_user  
> User.find(:all).each do |user|  
> get :index, {}, {:user =\> user.id}  
> assert\_response :success  
> assert\_tag :tag =\> “div”,  
> :attributes =\> {  
> :id =\> “usermenu”  
> },  
> :content =\> /Hello\s#{user.login}/  
> end  
> end
> 
> What’s happening is that it’s failing, saying:
> 
> expected tag, but no tag found matching {:tag=\>“div”,  
> :content=\>/Hello\sarthur/, :attributes=\>{:id=\>“usermenu”}} in:  
> …#dump of tags including…
> 
> \r\nHello quentin ...
> ... quentin is the first fixture in users, arthur is the second. It seems like the get :index is not successfully putting the new user id in the session.
> 
> Can anyone help me understand what’s going on?

Here’s some possible ides, they are of the “it takes someone else to  
suggest a stupid idea variety” though… so I’m not sure how likely  
they’ll be.

1. Have you confirmed that the page works as desired in the browser  
(perhaps the welcome message was hard-coded?)

2. Have you done anything “weird” with caching that might somehow be  
causing the test environment to cache the results of the pages?

3. if you unroll the loop, does it still fail?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/3 "2006-06-15T15:48:32Z")

</div>

Eric

Thanks for the suggestions. Actually it is working in the browser.  
After a bit of digging, I thought the problem might be with the  
current\_user method which wasn’t being updated with the change in  
session[:user], so posted the query on Railsweenie hoping Rick might be  
able to help (as the author of acts\_as\_authenticated). This is what he  
said (which makes sense):

```
You can't call a controller method multiple times in a functional
test. Instance variables like @controller, @request, and @response
don't get recycled. So, since the same controller instance is
sticking around, that means the same @current_user is too.

```

Not sure if there’s a good way to achieve what I’m trying to do – it’s  
not particular the Hello user I want to test, but I want to test the  
number of items each user sees of a particular kind). Do separate tests  
for each case? Or loop through a test rather than the controller method?  
Or could (should?) I use integration tests (which i haven’t yet  
investigated)?

Still quite new to this whole testing lark. Never had anything like this  
in php 😉

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/4 "2006-06-15T16:09:29Z")

</div>

Chris T wrote:

> Eric
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions. Actually it is working in the browser.  
> After a bit of digging, I thought the problem might be with the  
> current\_user method which wasn’t being updated with the change in  
> session[:user], so posted the query on Railsweenie hoping Rick might be  
> able to help (as the author of acts\_as\_authenticated). This is what he  
> said (which makes sense):
> 
> ```
> You can't call a controller method multiple times in a functional
> test. Instance variables like @controller, @request, and @response
> don't get recycled. So, since the same controller instance is
> sticking around, that means the same @current_user is too.
> 
> ```

Interesting, so it was “almost” a caching type issue…

> Not sure if there’s a good way to achieve what I’m trying to do – it’s  
> not particular the Hello user I want to test, but I want to test the  
> number of items each user sees of a particular kind). Do separate tests  
> for each case? Or loop through a test rather than the controller method?  
> Or could (should?) I use integration tests (which i haven’t yet  
> investigated)?

I tend to subscribe to the ~1 assertion per test approach. Controller  
tests already start to push that to 2-4 assertions so I definitely  
wouldn’t combined tests for different aspects of the same functionality  
into one test. So yes, I’d break up the test to separate cases.

Are you trying to test that the Model retreived the correct number of  
things (in which case that would probably belong in a unit test of the  
model, not the controller), or is there some controller side logic that  
affects the list before rendering that you need to test?

Or are you testing that a list renders properly, perhaps with some  
alternate text for cases where there are no elements? From a list  
viewpoint, when I’m being pendantic in my tests, I’ll commonly take an  
induction-based approach and write a test for each of the following:  
base cases (empty list, one item list)  
inductive case (assume it works for n, prove that it works for n+1)  
Note, some testers talk about testing 0,1,2 and calling it “inductive”,  
but unless the test case for 2 is written properly its not inductive.  
An inductive test case looks like:  
def test\_inductive\_step\_for\_foo  
current\_result = foo.method\_to\_test  
foo.add next\_foo  
assert\_equal current\_result+correct\_delta, foo.method\_to\_test  
end  
(of course method names, variables, and mechanism for combining  
current\_result and correct\_delta will vary, but the key point is that  
_transformation_ from one state to the next is correct, not merely that  
each state is correct.)

Eric

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/5 "2006-06-15T16:29:44Z")

</div>

Eric D. Nielsen wrote:

> > Not sure if there’s a good way to achieve what I’m trying to do – it’s  
> > into one test. So yes, I’d break up the test to separate cases.

Think you’re prob right here.

> Are you trying to test that the Model retreived the correct number of  
> things (in which case that would probably belong in a unit test of the  
> model, not the controller), or is there some controller side logic that  
> affects the list before rendering that you need to test?

No , it’s not that (see below). Interestingly, though, I did on another  
controller have some functionality which the process of writing a test  
for led me to put the logic into the model, where it more properly  
belonged. +1 for tests helping to structure things better

> Or are you testing that a list renders properly, perhaps with some  
> alternate text for cases where there are no elements? From a list  
> viewpoint, when I’m being pendantic in my tests, I’ll commonly take an  
> induction-based approach and write a test for each of the following:  
> base cases (empty list, one item list)  
> inductive case (assume it works for n, prove that it works for n+1)

Yes, it’s one of those case. Will try this out

> _transformation_ from one state to the next is correct, not merely that  
> each state is correct.)
> 
> Eric

Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@Chris\_T](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Chris_T)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/fwd-functional-test-problem/63451/6 "2007-08-26T20:50:54Z")

</div>

I found that you can just recreate a controller before you want to login  
with other user in the same test.