`method_missing': `build` is not available on an example group (e.g. a `describe` or `context` block)

Question

I wanted to remove the FactoryGirl.build(:user) everytime I want to create a user and so I added these lines:

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
end

to the spec_helper.rb. But this creates the following error:

`method_missing': `build` is not available on an example group (e.g. a `describe` or `context` block). It is only available from within individual examples (e.g. `it` blocks) or from constructs that run in the scope of an example (e.g. `before`, `let`, etc). (RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::WrongScopeError)

Then I removed all the context/describe blocks, but that didn't change anything. Have any of you had the same problem with this and how may I fix it?

Currently my tests look like so:

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe User, type: :model do
  user = build(:user)
  project = build(:project)

  it "is valid with a firstname, lastname, email and password" do
    expect(user).to be_valid
  end

  it "is invalid without a firstname" do
    user = build(:user, name: nil)

    expect(user.valid?).to be_falsey
    expect(user.errors[:name].size).to eq(1)
  end

  it "is invalid without a lastname" do
    user = build(:user, surname: nil)

    expect(user.valid?).to be_falsey
    expect(user.errors[:surname].size).to eq(1)
  end

  it "destroys dependent projects" do
    user = User.create!(name: 'john', surname: 'doe', email: '[email protected]', password: 'password', password_confirmation: 'password')
    user.projects << project

    expect{user.destroy}.to change {Project.count}.by(-1)
  end

end

Answer 1

Instead of:

user = build(:user)
project = build(:project)

Do:

let(:user) { build(:user) }
let(:project) { build(:project) }

In general it is not a good idea to define external variables to use them in a test, as this might make your tests order-dependent and extremely hard to debug. Always use the let syntax, so the values are reinitialized for every test.