RSpec anonymous controller for concern

Question

I'm trying to test a Rails controller concern (though I'm not sure this fact is at all related to my issue) in RSpec, so I figured I'd use an anonymous controller. Here's my setup:

describe MyConcern do
  controller do
    include MyConcern

    def edit
      puts "Checkpoint!"
      @value = concern_method
      render text: "test edit method called"
    end
  end

  it "should call concern_method" do
    get :edit, id: 1
    assigns(:value).should eq "expected_value" # Set by concern_method
  end
end

Now here's the weird part. I test using Guard. When Guard detects a save of the spec file and runs this test, it passes and Checkpoint! is printed. Every time, completely deterministically. I can keep saving the file and it keeps passing. (If it helps, Guard uses Spring and runs RSpec.)

But when I run the test with an RSpec command, it fails. Weirdest of all, I would have expected a failure to occur because something weird happens with the anonymous controller setup and it can't find the route, but instead it's the should that fails the test. When I run RSpec manually in this way, Checkpoint! never prints, indicating that the anonymous controller action isn't getting called. But because I don't get a route error, some controller action must be getting called but I have no idea what, as I don't even have any other anonymous controllers with an edit function that could possibly conflict. I've tried restarting Spring—no luck.

Any thoughts on what I could be doing wrong?

---

Edit:

Here's more info. The format of my concern is this:

module MyConcern
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern

  included do
    puts "Included!"

    private

    def concern_method
      puts "Method is called!"
      "expected_value"
    end
  end
end

When the test fails (from me running RSpec explicitly with bundle exec rspec), I get a pretty typical failure message:

Failure/Error: assigns(:value).should eq "expected_value"

       expected: "expected_value"
            got: nil

       (compared using ==)

The top of my Guardfile is just guard :rspec, cmd: 'bundle exec spring rspec --color', and this behavior is the same even when I remove spring from that command. I really have no idea how to debug this one.

Answer 1

I think that controller receives an argument which will be used as a base class and if you don't pass one it will use the thing that you describe. So your test is fishy :)

Try:

controller(ApplicationController) do
    ...
end