How to call an app helper method from an RSpec test in Rails?

Question

The title is self explanatory.

Everything I've tried led to a "undefined method".

To clarify, I am not trying to test a helper method. I am trying to use a helper method in an integration test.

Answer 1

You just need to include the relevant helper module in your test to make the methods available:

describe "foo" do
  include ActionView::Helpers

  it "does something with a helper method" do
    # use any helper methods here

It's really as simple as that.

Answer 2

For anyone coming late to this question, it is answered on the Relish site.

require "spec_helper"

describe "items/search.html.haml" do
  before do
    controller.singleton_class.class_eval do
      protected
      def current_user
        FactoryGirl.build_stubbed(:merchant)
      end
      helper_method :current_user
    end
  end

  it "renders the not found message when @items is empty" do
    render

    expect(
      rendered
    ).to match("Sorry, we can't find any items matching "".")
  end
end

Answer 3

If you are trying to use a helper method on your view test, you can go with the following:

before do
  view.extend MyHelper
end

It must be inside a describe block.

It works for me on rails 3.2 and rspec 2.13

Answer 4

Based on Thomas Riboulet's post on Coderwall:

At the beginning of your spec file add this:

def helper
  Helper.instance
end

class Helper
  include Singleton
  include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper
end

and then call a particular helper with helper.name_of_the_helper.

This particular example includes the ActionView's NumberHelper. I needed the UrlHelper, so I did include ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper and helper.link_to.