NoMethodError: undefined method `email' for nil:NilClass (Rspec/factory girl/cancan/devise)

Question

I am following Hartl's Rails tutorial but I used devise/cancan/rolify so some things are not the same.

On my users_pages_spec.rb test, I keep getting this error in spite of all I tried:

1) User pages index delete links as an admin user 
 Failure/Error: sign_in @superadmin
 NoMethodError:
   undefined method `email' for nil:NilClass
 # ./spec/support/utilities.rb:14:in `sign_in'
 # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:91:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

2) User pages index delete links as an admin user 
 Failure/Error: sign_in @superadmin
 NoMethodError:
   undefined method `email' for nil:NilClass
 # ./spec/support/utilities.rb:14:in `sign_in'
 # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:91:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

3) User pages index delete links as an admin user should be able to delete another user
 Failure/Error: sign_in @superadmin
 NoMethodError:
   undefined method `email' for nil:NilClass
 # ./spec/support/utilities.rb:14:in `sign_in'
 # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:91:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

4) User pages index delete links as an admin user 
 Failure/Error: sign_in @superadmin
 NoMethodError:
   undefined method `email' for nil:NilClass
 # ./spec/support/utilities.rb:14:in `sign_in'
 # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:91:in `block (5 levels) in <top (required)>'

I don't understand why, does nil::nilClass mean factory girl actually does not manage to create this superadmin user?

Here is the sample of my user_pages_spec.rb file:

require 'spec_helper'
require 'cancan/matchers'

# Test if targeted words appears in displayed content

describe "User pages" do

subject { page }
let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
let(:wrong_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user, email: "[email protected]") }
let(:non_admin) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
let(:submit) { "Sign in" }

describe "index" do
  describe "delete links" do

  it { should_not have_link('delete') }

  describe "as an admin user" do
    let(:superadmin) { FactoryGirl.create(:superadmin) }
    before do
      sign_in @superadmin
      visit users_path
    end
    it { should have_title('List of users') }

    it { should have_link('delete', href: user_path(User.first)) }
    it "should be able to delete another user" do
      expect { click_link('delete') }.to change(User, :count).by(-1)
    end
    it { should_not have_link('delete', href: user_path(superadmin)) }
  end
end
end
end

my spec/utilities.rb defining sign_in method

include ApplicationHelper

def sign_in(user)
visit new_user_session_path
fill_in "Email",        with: user.email
fill_in "Password", with: user.password
click_button "Login"
#populate cookie when not using capybara
cookies[:authentication_token] = user.authentication_token
end

and my spec/factories/user.rb

FactoryGirl.define do
factory :user do
sequence(:name)  { |n| "Person #{n}" }
sequence(:email) { |n| "person_#{n}@example.com"}   
password "beta"
password_confirmation "beta"
# required if the Devise Confirmable module is used
confirmed_at Time.now
confirmation_token nil

factory :superadmin do
  after(:create) {|user| user.add_role(:superadmin)}
end
end

end

I do have in cancan/rolify a superadmin role defined.

If anybody has a clue, I'd take it! i can update the question with additional file needed if not already here.

Answer 1

Your let call is setting superadmin, but you're referencing @superadmin, which is going to be nil, since it hasn't been set. BTW, this is a good reason to generally avoid using instance variables in your tests, as they silently default to nil when referenced if uninitialized.