On Feb 19, 2008, at 3:42 AM, David Chelimsky wrote: > On Feb 18, 2008 8:10 PM, EAW <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> I know that in general, view and controller tests should be isolated, >> such that controller specs don't test views etc. However, I think >> I've run into a situation that might be an exception. >> >> My controller uses render_to_string to produce a chunk of HTML that >> it >> passes to a model to be processed. >> >> The controller then redirects the user to a different page. The >> results of the render_to_string are not seen by the user. >> >> Since the controller is calling render_to_string, I've been trying to >> test that it is rendered correctly in my controller spec. Because a >> controller spec normally doesn't render views, render_to_string just >> returns the path of the view, rather than the rendered output. This >> prevents me from testing the output of render_to_string in the >> controller spec. >> >> I can work around the issue by using integrate_views, and I guess >> that's fine, but shouldn't render_to_string really work in >> controllers? > > The whole point of isolation is to isolate the code in the controller > from the code in the view. The two primary reasons for this are that > it allows you to write controller code before the view exists and it > keeps failures in views isolated to the view specs (why should a > controller spec fail because of a typo in a view?). > > The fact that the result of rendering is being passed to a model > instead of a (theoretical) browser should not make a difference, > should it? >
I am of two minds on this. On one, I can see testing that the controller assigns a template to a variable, and then test that the view is as expected in a view spec. On the other hand, if I am doing a render to string, then from a testing perspective, I'm assigning a variable. Whether that variable goes to the browser or a model shouldn't matter, we should enable testing of it as a variable. > I can see your argument for wanting to be able to treat this example > differently, and you can, as you pointed out, accomplish that with > integrate_views. Perhaps there should be a way to allow render_to_string to render a without making all views render. WDYT? James Deville http://devillecompanies.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] rspec r3172 rspec_on_rails r3172 rails r8331 > > > FWIW, > David > >> >> Thanks for your input, >> >> e. >> -- >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> "If the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence!" >> -- Pop Will Eat Itself, "Ich Bin Ein >> Auslander" >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> rspec-users mailing list >> rspec-users@rubyforge.org >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >> > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
