Why is this controller test on a create action failing?

Question

I'm getting a failing test here that I'm having trouble understanding. I'm using Test::Unit with Shoulda enhancement. Action in users_controller.rb I'm trying to test...

def create
  unless params[:user][:email] =~ / specific regex needed for this app /i

    # ...

    render :template => 'sessions/new'
  end
end

Test...

context 'on CREATE to :user' do
  context 'with invalid email' do
    setup { post :create, { 'user[email]' => 'abc@abcd' } }
    should_respond_with :success
  end
  # ...
end

Fails because "response to be a <:success>, but was <302>". How is it 302?

Change action to...

def create
  render :template => 'sessions/new'
end

Test still fails.

Answer 1

If you're using default REST-ful URLs, you probably should use PUT, not POST... Since PUT is connected to create, POST to that URL will give you an unauthorized and redirect.

Answer 2

@Ola: You're wrong: POST is connected to create. PUT is normally connected to update.

A :forbidden is quiet odd though. Here are some suggestions to find the problem (I've never used Shoulda, but I don't think it is a problem with Shoulda.

1. Make sure the route is defined in config/routes.rb and check with rake routes
2. Do you have any before_filters that could be responsible for that behaviour (login filter, acts_as_authenticated etc..)? Checkout log/test.log. A halt in the filter chain shows up there.
3. Print out the response body puts response.body to see what you get returned.

Hope this helps.