Using RSpec to test for correct order of records in a model

Question

I'm new to rails and RSpec and would like some pointers on how to get this test to work.

I want emails to be sorted from newest to oldest and I'm having trouble testing this.

I'm new to Rails and so far I'm having a harder time getting my tests to work then the actual functionality.

Updated

require 'spec_helper'

describe Email do

  before do
    @email = Email.new(email_address: "[email protected]")
  end

  subject { @email }

  it { should respond_to(:email_address) }
  it { should respond_to(:newsletter) }

  it { should be_valid }

  describe "order" do 

    @email_newest = Email.new(email_address: "[email protected]")

    it "should have the right emails in the right order" do
      Email.all.should == [@email_newest, @email]
    end

  end 

end

Here is the error I get:

1) Email order should have the right emails in the right order
  Failure/Error: Email.all.should == [@email_newest, @email]
   expected: [nil, #<Email id: nil, email_address: "[email protected]", newsletter: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>]
        got: [] (using ==)
   Diff:
   @@ -1,3 +1,2 @@
   -[nil,
   - #<Email id: nil, email_address: "[email protected]", newsletter: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>]
   +[]
 # ./spec/models/email_spec.rb:32:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Answer 1

In your code:

it "should have the right emails in the right order" do
  Email.should == [@email_newest, @email]
end

You are setting the expectation that the Email model should be equal to the array of emails. Email is a class. You can't just expect the class to be equal to an array. All emails can be found by using all method on class Email.

You must set the expectation for two arrays to be equal.

it "should have the right emails in the right order" do
  Email.order('created_at desc').all.should == [@email_newest, @email]
end

It should work like this.