How do I stub out a current user's attributes in a view spec

Question

I have a view spec where I'm testing conditional output. How do I get the spec to return the user I've mocked out?

View file:

.content
 - if @current_user.is_welcome == true
  Welcome to the site

View spec:

before(:each) do 
  @user = mock_model(User)
  @user.stub!(:is_welcome).and_return(true)
  view.stub(:current_user).and_return(@user) 
end

it "show content" do 
  #assign(:current_user, stub_model(User, dismiss_intro: true))
  render
  rendered.should have_content("Welcome to the site")
end

Running the spec returns undefined method is_welcome for nil:NilClass

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 08 '12 at 09:18

1

You have stubbed the method named current_user, not the instance variable @current_user.

view.stub(:current_user).and_return(@user)

That means, in the view, you should be using:

.content
 - if current_user.is_welcome == true
  Welcome to the site

Notice that it calls the method current_user instead of getting the @current_user instance variable.

If you need an instance variable, it is recommended that you have create a method current_user, which gets the instance variable and returns it.

answered Sep 08 '12 at 09:18

ronalchn

12,225
10
51
61

My ApplicationController returns the instance variable `helper_method :current_user` which returns @current_user. I just don't think I'm understanding stubbing. – Simpleton Sep 08 '12 at 09:22
you have stubbed a method, but you are trying to access a variable. The variable is `nil` because it hasn't been initialized. – ronalchn Sep 08 '12 at 09:26
you shouldn't/can't. That's why I say to change your view. – ronalchn Sep 08 '12 at 09:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 08 '12 at 17:21

I ended up doing this which let me keep the @current_user variable in my view and made the spec pass:

before :each do
  @user = stub_model(User, is_welcome: true)
  assign(:current_user, @user)
end

Then to test the conditionality, just ran another spec in a context with a different before block:

before :each do
  @user = stub_model(User, is_welcome: false)
  assign(:current_user, @user)
end

How do I stub out a current user's attributes in a view spec

2 Answers2

Linked