Testing helper methods in rspec

Testing RSpec
1

This is perhaps a naive question, but what is the recommended manner of
testing a helper method in rspec? I have created a simple string
manipulation
function and I want to write some tests for it. It it were a script
then I
would just add if FILE == $0 and add the tests below that but I do
not
feel that this is the best way to handle a rails helper.

The code (I said it was simple) :

module ApplicationHelper

keycase strips leading spaces, squeezes out extra whitespace

between words, downshifts all and then capitalizes the first

character of each word.

This method prepares descriptive strings that are used

as indices for lookups. To preserve common initialisms insert

periods between letters. Thus:

IBM => Ibm but I.B.M. => I.B.M.

Do not use ! methods as they return nil under certain circumstances

def keycase(value)
value = value.to_s.strip.squeeze("
").downcase.gsub(/\b\w/){$&.upcase}
end

end

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2

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 3:54 PM, James B. Byrne [email protected]
wrote:

This is perhaps a naive question, but what is the recommended manner of
testing a helper method in rspec?

You just describe the helper module and call the helper method like
you’d do in the views:

require File.dirname(FILE) + ‘/…/spec_helper’

describe ApplicationHelper do
describe “breadcrumbs” do
describe “when breadcrumbs empty” do
it “should show nothing” do
breadcrumbs.should == “”
end
end
end
end

I have created a simple string manipulation

character of each word.

end

end

Something like this:

require File.dirname(FILE) + ‘/…/spec_helper’

describe ApplicationHelper do
describe “keycase” do
describe “when no dots” do
before(:each) do
@value = “IBM”
end

  it "should convert to lowercase" do
    keycase(@value).should == "Ibm"
  end
end

end
end

And so on.

//jarkko

–
Jarkko L.

http://odesign.fi