Rails Tutorial Ch. 9 Exercise 6: Expected response to be a <redirect>, but was <200>

Question

I am trying to write tests and application code to redirect users who are already signed-in to the root_path if they try to CREATE a user or visit the NEW user path.

Here are the tests I have written in user_pages_spec.rb:

describe "for signed in users" do
      let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
      before { sign_in user }

      describe "using a 'new' action" do
        before { get new_user_path }
        specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
      end

      describe "using a 'create' action" do
        before { post users_path }
        specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
      end         
  end 

UsersController:

class UsersController < ApplicationController
  before_action :unsigned_in_user, only: [:create, :new]

  def new
    @user = User.new
  end

  def create
     @user = User.new(user_params)
     if @user.save
      sign_in @user
          flash[:success] = "Welcome to the Sample App!"
          redirect_to @user
     else
          render 'new'
     end
  end

  private
    # Before filters

    def user_params
      params.require(:user).permit(:name, :email, :password,
                               :password_confirmation)
    end

    def unsigned_in_user
      puts signed_in?
      redirect_to root_url, notice: "You are already signed in." unless !signed_in?
    end
end

The puts signed_in? returns false. I am assuming this is the problem because I would expect it to return true. Here are the errors after running the tests using rspec. Any help is appreciated.

Failures:

  1) User pages for signed in users using a 'create' action 
     Failure/Error: before { post users_path }
     ActionController::ParameterMissing:
       param not found: user
     # ./app/controllers/users_controller.rb:52:in `user_params'
     # ./app/controllers/users_controller.rb:20:in `create'
     # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:162:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'

  2) User pages for signed in users using a 'new' action 
     Failure/Error: specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
       Expected response to be a <redirect>, but was <200>
     # ./spec/requests/user_pages_spec.rb:158:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'

Within the sessions_helper.rb file:

def signed_in?
    !current_user.nil?
end

In spec/support/utilities.rb:

def sign_in(user, options={})
  if options[:no_capybara]
    # Sign in when not using Capybara.
    remember_token = User.new_remember_token
    cookies[:remember_token] = remember_token
    user.update_attribute(:remember_token, User.encrypt(remember_token))
  else
    visit signin_path
    fill_in "Email",    with: user.email
    fill_in "Password", with: user.password
    click_button "Sign in"
  end
end

Answer 1

Were you able to get your tests to pass?

In case you weren't, I had the same problem as you today, and was able to get the tests to pass by making two changes to the tests - passing a user hash when POSTing, and using the no_capybara option on the sign_in method, since get and post are not capybara methods and I think RSpec doesn't behave as we might expect if we switch from capybara to non-capybara methods within the same test.

describe "for signed-in users" do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
  before { sign_in user, no_capybara: true }

  describe "using a 'new' action" do
    before { get new_user_path }      
    specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
  end

  describe "using a 'create' action" do
    before do
      @user_new = {name: "Example User", 
                   email: "[email protected]", 
                   password: "foobar", 
                   password_confirmation: "foobar"} 
      post users_path, user: @user_new 
    end

    specify { response.should redirect_to(root_path) }
  end
end