Lacking some enlightenment on why rspec says I have a 200 response when I do not

Rails
1

I am writing a few low level tests for my controllers to verify
security.
New to rspec and am seeing some unexpected activity:

If I run this spec:

describe “GET index” do
it “does not load for guest role” do
get :new
flash[:notice].should match RESTRICTED_PAGE_NOTICE
response.should redirect_to(login_path)
end

Which hits

class PracticesController < ApplicationController

def index
@practices = Practice.all

respond_to do |format|
  format.html # index.html.erb
end

end

end

But the controller also inherits from the application controller which:

class ApplicationController
…
when ‘practices’
flash[:notice] = RESTRICTED_PAGE_NOTICE
redirect_to login_path if action_name != ‘new’ && action_name
!=
‘create’
end

I have verified the redirect and message in a browser, so this code is
executing as expected in ‘reality’.

Then why do I get this error:

  1. PracticesController GET index does not load for guest role
    Failure/Error: response.should redirect_to(login_path)
    Expected response to be a <:redirect>, but was <200>.
    Expected block to return true value.

It is true, if the controller is isolated and not inheriting from the
app
controller, it would be a 200. But with the app controller it should
redirect before it ever hits the method.

The line in the app controller “flash[:notice] = RESTRICTED_PAGE_NOTICE”
clearly gets evaluated as the line in the spec “flash[:notice].should
match
RESTRICTED_PAGE_NOTICE” passes, BUT this line in the app controller
“redirect_to login_path if action_name != ‘new’ && action_name !=
‘create’”
does not get evaluated as rspec says I have a 200 response? I am really
confused and don’t like what feels to be a weird paradox…

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks,

David