Mock objects not getting unloaded between specs

Testing RSpec
1

I’m having a frustrating experience with a mock object in one example (a
Rails controller test) interfering with an actual model test in a
subsequent
model example. More specifically, I have
spec/controllers/section_controller_spec.rb with a mock call like this
in
one of the examples:

Section.should_receive(:paginate_by_tag_set).with([], :page =>
nil).and_return([])

Ok, everything is fine so far. The mock does what it is supposed to and
my
example succeeds.
Later on, I have a model spec in spec/models/section_spec.rb that
actually
tests the functionality of this “paginate_by_tag_set” class method, like
this:

Section.paginate_by_tag_set([], :page => nil).total_entries.should == 19

This model example fails, and I’ve determined that the code for my
paginate_by_tag_set class method is never even getting called in this
example. It seems to have something to do with the order in which my
tests
are run … whenever I run the controller test before the model tests,
this
model example fails, presumably because the mocked call to
paginate_by_tag_set is still living, and the actual code isn’t getting
called.

If I run spec spec/models/section_spec.rb individually, everything
passes
just fine.

Any ideas on how to isolate the mock to live only within the test in
which
it is defined? Am I understanding something wrong here?

Thanks,
Nate

2

On Feb 4, 2008 2:51 PM, Nate C. [email protected] wrote:

example succeeds.
model example fails, presumably because the mocked call to
paginate_by_tag_set is still living, and the actual code isn’t getting
called.

This was a bug a long time ago (probably a year), so unless you’re on
a very old version I doubt it’s related. What version of rspec are you
using?

Also - can you pastie the spec and code for this controller? It would
help to see what else is going on that might be leading to this.

Thanks,
David

3

David, thanks for getting back.

Here is the pastie with (hopefully) all the relevant code:
http://pastie.caboo.se/147536

We’re using the latest and greatest Rspec 1.1.3, so I don’t think it’s
old
versions that is the problem.
Through some debugging, I have determined that in fact my
“paginate_by_tag_set” method is never getting called in the model spec
example as long as the section_controller spec is run first. If I run
the
model spec alone, or before the controller spec where the mock is
defined,
it works fine.

Nate