How to write rspec tests for controllers that assume authentication

Question

For controllers that assume a user to be already authenticated, how should I go about writing my tests?

I probably don't need to keep testing the login feature, so is it best to just inject a user or whatever my authentication assumes somehow?

My application_controller includes a module "current_user".

module CurrentUser
  def self.included(base)
    base.send :helper_method, :current_user
  end

  def current_user
    ... # returns a User model instance
  end
end

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include CurrentUser

Then I have an admin controller which has a before_action method that makes sure the current_user is present.

Devise or no devise? include CurrentUser makes me think no devise. — frank184
– frank184, Commented May 28, 2016 at 19:31
How are you checking that the user has been authenticated? Couldn't you just create a method to sign in, similar to devise? — frank184
– frank184, Commented May 28, 2016 at 20:45

Hieu Pham · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-28 21:37:58Z

You can easily achieve this by writing a concern, and include to every spec which is a controller, in this concern we support some utility methods to login to the system.

So the code will be like:

spec/support/controller_authentication_helper.rb

module ControllerAuthenticationHelper extend ActiveSupport::Concern
  module ClassMethods
    def login_user
      before do
        # I expect you are using Devise here, if not, just modify below line
        request.env['devise.mapping'] = Devise.mappings[:user]
        @current_user = FactoryGirl.create(:user, :confirmed, :verified)
        sign_in @current_user
      end
    end
  end
end

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include ControllerAuthenticationHelper, type: :controller
end

So now the test will be easy like:

require 'rails_helper'

describe MyController, type: :controller do
  # Use this method to login
  login_user
  # Now you can access current_user anywhere in your test
end

Now everything becomes simple! The idea comes from this source code of Devise

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to write rspec tests for controllers that assume authentication

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related