How do I disable rescue handlers in Ruby on Rails apps when I'm running functional tests?

Question

I have a number of controllers in my Ruby on Rails apps with a rescue handler at the end of the action that basically catches any unhandled errors and returns some kind of "user friendly" error. However, when I'm doing rake test I'd like to have those default rescue handlers disabled so I can see the full error & stack trace. Is there any automated way to do this?

Update to clarify: I have an action like this:

def foo
  # do some stuff...
rescue
  render :text => "Exception: #{$!}" # this could be any kind of custom render
end

Now when I functional test this, if the exception is raised then I'm going to get just a little bit of info about the exception, but what I'd like is for it to act as though there's no rescue handler there, so I get the full debug information.

Update: SOLUTION

I did this:

  rescue:
    raise unless Rails.env.production?
    render :text => "Exception: #{$!}" # this could be any kind of custom render
  end

Answer 1

Have you looked at using the assert_raise( exception1, exception2, ... ) { block } call and then printing the exception from the block?

Answer 2

Which method are you using? There are two rescue methods in ActionController.

I have this in my base controller:

def rescue_action_in_public(exception)
    response_code = response_code_for_rescue(exception)
    status = interpret_status(response_code)
    respond_to do |format|
        format.html { render_optional_error_file response_code}
        format.js { render :update, :status => status  do |page| page.redirect_to(:url => error_page_url(status)) end}
end

end

This only displays custom errors in production mode.

Answer 3

You shouldn't need to disable your rescue block. Use the assert_raise method (as suggested by Scott), and in the block, call the method that you expect an exception from.

For example:

def test_throws_exception
  assert_raise Exception do
    raise_if_true(true)
  end
end

Answer 4

I think the easiest thing to do is verify that the correct render was called-- or whatever was different from the regular, non-exceptional case.

Answer 5

Not quite automated, but how modifying your code to re-throw exceptions whenever called within a test?

Perhaps something like this:

def foo
  # do some stuff...
rescue
  raise if ENV["RAILS_ENV"] == "test"
  render :text => "Exception: #{$!}" # this could be any kind of custom render
end