Capybara: How to test the title of a page?

Question

In a Rails 3 application using Steak, Capybara and RSpec how do I test the page's title?

Lars Schirrmeister · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-10T08:20:15.010

108

Since the version 2.1.0 of capybara there are methods on the session to deal with the title. You have

page.title
page.has_title? "my title"
page.has_no_title? "my not found title"

So you can test the title like:

expect(page).to have_title "my_title"

According to github.com/jnicklas/capybara/issues/863 the following is also working with capybara 2.0:

expect(first('title').native.text).to eq "my title"

edited Apr 10 '13 at 08:20

answered Jan 03 '13 at 13:24

Lars Schirrmeister

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score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 06 '13 at 20:14

14

This works under Rails 3.1.10, Capybara 2.0.2 and Rspec 2.12, and allows matching partial contents:

find('title').native.text.should have_content("Status of your account::")

answered Feb 06 '13 at 20:14

jpw

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Thanks! I actually used this to monkey patch Capybara, see my answer below. – Jake Feb 28 '13 at 21:50

Dylan Markow · Answer 3 · 2011-04-11T17:38:15.170

14

You should be able to search for the title element to make sure it contains the text you want:

page.should have_xpath("//title", :text => "My Title")

edited Apr 11 '11 at 17:38

answered Feb 26 '11 at 20:27

Dylan Markow

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I get a Failure/Error: page.should have_xpath("//title", "home") wrong number of arguments (3 for 2) – Nerian Feb 26 '11 at 22:50
And the code is: scenario "The user is logged in and can see his home page" do visit('/') page.should have_xpath("//title", "home") end – Nerian Feb 26 '11 at 22:51
Oops, forgot that the second parameter is supposed to be a hash... Check my revised answer. – Dylan Markow Feb 27 '11 at 01:34
I didn't really want to post this as an answer, though I feel it could be (I know it's not very ruby-ish). `page.should have_content('Your Title')` – Tass Aug 19 '11 at 16:07
I should further add that `page.should have_content()` and `page.has_content?()` seem to not work as beautifully as the xpath methods. – Tass Aug 24 '11 at 18:48
The message when the test fails is really weird. It'll say e.g. `expected xpath "//title" with text "Notifications" to return something` if the title doesn't match (in this case) `Notifications`. This is much less helpful than the normal "expected vs got" pattern. – Tyler Collier Jul 29 '12 at 08:44
8

This code doesn't work anymore with capybara 2: https://github.com/jnicklas/capybara/issues/863 – Mic92 Nov 28 '12 at 06:00

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 28 '13 at 21:50

3

I added this to my spec helper:

class Capybara::Session
  def must_have_title(title="")
    find('title').native.text.must_have_content(title)
  end
end

Then I can just use:

it 'should have the right title' do
  page.must_have_title('Expected Title')
end

answered Feb 28 '13 at 21:50

Jake

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That's a nice addition to spec helper! – jpw Mar 04 '13 at 07:29

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 15 '14 at 13:40

In order to test for the title of a page with Rspec and Capybara 2.1 you could use

expect(page).to have_title 'Title text'

another option is
expect(page).to have_css 'title', text: 'Title text', visible: false
Since Capybara 2.1 the default is Capybara.ignore_hidden_elements = true, and because the title element is invisible you need the option visible: false for the search to include non visible page elements.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 26 '11 at 21:44

2

Testing the Title of each page can be done in a much easier way with RSpec.

require 'spec_helper'

describe PagesController do
  render_views

  describe "GET 'home'" do
    before(:each) do
      get 'home'
      @base_title = "Ruby on Rails"
    end

    it "should have the correct title " do
      response.should have_selector("title",
                                :content => @base_title + " | Home")
    end
  end
end

answered Feb 26 '11 at 21:44

ChuckJHardy

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That is easier than page.should have_xpath("//title", :text => "My Title")? – Mike Blyth May 14 '11 at 13:23
1

Rendering views in controller tests is not my cup of tea. I vote for using of integration tests (and capybara) for pate title verification. – Grimmo Apr 23 '12 at 12:21
2

capybara 2, only accepts :text not :content as parameter. The content of a title tag cannot be checked with the latest capybara: https://github.com/jnicklas/capybara/issues/863 – Mic92 Nov 28 '12 at 06:03

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 21 '14 at 19:31

You just need to set the subject to page and then write an expectation for the page's title method:

subject{ page }
its(:title){ should eq 'welcome to my website!' }

In context:

require 'spec_helper'

describe 'static welcome pages' do
  subject { page }

  describe 'visit /welcome' do
    before { visit '/welcome' } 

    its(:title){ should eq 'welcome to my website!'}
  end
end

score -1 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 17 '13 at 01:22

-1

it { should have_selector "title", text: full_title("Your title here") }

answered Mar 17 '13 at 01:22

Hengjie

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Capybara: How to test the title of a page?

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