How To: Test with Cucumber

Some snippets how to test Devise with Cucumber (don’t forget to speed up your tests!).

Examples and Tutorials

• Rails 3.2 example app using Devise + RSpec + Cucumber. With a detailed tutorial.
• Rails 3.2 example app using Devise + Mongoid + RSpec + Cucumber. With a detailed tutorial.

Cucumber Testing for “Sign Out”

Devise 1.4.1 (27 June 2011) changed the default behavior for sign out requests:

https://github.com/plataformatec/devise/commit/adb127bb3e3b334cba903db2c21710e8c41c2b40

Jose Valim explained why: “GET requests should not change the state of the server. When sign out is a GET request, CSRF can be used to sign you out automatically and things that preload links can eventually sign you out by mistake as well.”

Cucumber wants to test GET requests not DELETE requests for destroy_user_session_path. If you intend to use Cucumber with Devise, change the Devise default from DELETE to GET in the test environment with this change to config/initializers/devise.rb:

config.sign_out_via = Rails.env.test? ? :get : :delete

Don’t try to tweak the routes.rb file to make the fix. It isn’t necessary. If you’re not going to use Cucumber, leave Devise’s new default (DELETE) in place.

The example source code here:

https://github.com/RailsApps/rails3-devise-rspec-cucumber

shows the change to the Devise initializer for Cucumber.

---

Or alternatively, you can simply do a DELETE request to sign out. Example snippet below, where logout url is ‘/users/sign_out’.

Given /^I am not signed in$/ do
  current_driver = Capybara.current_driver
  begin
    Capybara.current_driver = :rack_test
    page.driver.submit :delete, "/users/sign_out", {}
  ensure
    Capybara.current_driver = current_driver
  end
end

Authenticating using capybara steps

Cucumber ships with the capybara DSL for triggering usual actions a real user would perform. It’s a good idea to just sign in as you would do in your browser, for it makes Cucumber steps both solid and straightforward. Examples of such steps, using standard Devise routes and Authenticable, given a route devise_for :users, are:

Given /^I am not authenticated$/ do
  visit('/users/sign_out') # ensure that at least
end

Given /^I am a new, authenticated user$/ do
  email = '[email protected]'
  password = 'secretpass'
  User.new(:email => email, :password => password, :password_confirmation => password).save!

  visit '/users/sign_in'
  fill_in "user_email", :with => email
  fill_in "user_password", :with => password
  click_button "Sign in"

end

Be sure to handle Confirmable if you had this module enabled (that is, specify confirmation attributes when creating a user).

Now you can do things like:

Scenario Outline: Creating a new account
    Given I am not authenticated
    When I go to register # define this path mapping in features/support/paths.rb, usually as '/users/sign_up'
    And I fill in "user_email" with "<email>"
    And I fill in "user_password" with "<password>"
    And I fill in "user_password_confirmation" with "<password>"
    And I press "Sign up"
    Then I should see "logged in as <email>" # your work!

    Examples:
      | email           | password   |
      | [email protected] | secretpass |
      | [email protected]     | fr33z3     |

Scenario: Willing to edit my account
    Given I am a new, authenticated user # beyond this step, your work!
    When I want to edit my account
    Then I should see the account initialization form
    And I should see "Your account has not been initialized yet. Do it now!"
    # And more view checking stuff

Authenticating using warden

You can use warden testing helpers, although it is more an RSpec matter.

Redirects

In Rails when a rack application redirects (just like Warden/Devise redirects you to the login page), the response is not properly updated by the integration session. As consequence, the helper assert_redirected_to won’t work.

Here is an example on how to properly check the redirect using Devise with Cucumber in a step:

    Then /^I am redirected to "([^\"]*)"$/ do |url|
      assert [301, 302].include?(@integration_session.status), "Expected status to be 301 or 302, got #{@integration_session.status}"
      location = @integration_session.headers["Location"]
      assert_equal url, location
      visit location
    end

Summarizing, you just have to use the values in @integration_session and not @response, because just the first contains rack app information.