RSpec routing test problems with params in nested resources

Question

i have a strange problem.. rspec generated a class named menus_routing_spec.rb in spec/routing

the tests are failing because menus is a nested resource of restaurant.

this is my test:

    describe MenusController do

  before :each do
    @restaurant = FactoryGirl.create(:random_restaurant)
    @menu = FactoryGirl.create(:menu)
  end

  describe 'routing' do
    it 'routes to #index' do
      params = {}
      params['restaurant_id'] = @restaurant


      #get('/restaurants/:restaurant_id/menus').should route_to('menus#index')
      #get(restaurant_menus_path(@restaurant)).should route_to('menus#index')
      #get(restaurant_menus_path, { :restaurant_id => @restaurant  }).should route_to('menus#index')

      get restaurant_menus_path, { :restaurant_id => @restaurant.to_param  }
      expect(response).should route_to('menus#index')
    end

the path in rake routing looks like this:

restaurant_menus_path    GET     (/:locale)/restaurants/:restaurant_id/menus(.:format)   menus#index

i get always this error message:

Failure/Error: get restaurant_menus_path, @restaurant.to_param
     ActionController::UrlGenerationError:
       No route matches {:action=>"index", :controller=>"menus"} missing required keys: [:restaurant_id]

I tried also the other ones.. but same error.. does anyone can see where i am doing the mistake?

this is a test in spec/controllers/menus_controller_spec.rb which works fine

it 'renders the index template' do
      get :index, { :restaurant_id => @restaurant  }
      expect(response).to render_template('index')
    end

thank you very much for help

Answer 1

Routing specs should test that the action (get) given a path as a string (i.e. "/first/1/second/2") will route to an action with the correct parameters set (i.e. first_id: 1, id: 2)

You don't need to create an instance of your models here. It's unnecessary and it'll just slow down the spec.

describe MenusController do
  describe 'routing' do
    it 'routes to #index' do
      get('/restaurants/42/menus').should route_to('menus#index', restaurant_id: 42)
    end

    it 'routes to #show' do
      get('/restaurants/42/menus/37').should route_to('menus#index', restaurant_id: 42, id: 37)
    end
  end
end

You can also pass in other arguments, like format: :json, or anything else that might be gleaned from a URL string, as it's mainly testing that your routes file directs you to the correct place with the correct parameters.