ruby on rails - RSpec set session object

Question

I'm trying to set a session object from my controller spec.

it 'use invalid coupon' do
  session[:coupon] = 'abcd'      
  Service.any_instance.stub(:validate_coupon).with(session[:coupon]).and_return('abcd')

  get :index
  expect(flash[:coupon__notice]).to be nil
end

but when I inspect the session, instead of a @coupon object, I get a @data that contains the string 'coupon', and test fails.

Answer 1

This is explained in the Guide to Testing Rails Applications in section 4 "Functional Tests for your Controllers. The get action takes a params hash and a session hash, e.g.:

get(:show, {'id' => "12"}, {'user_id' => 5})

You should be able to pass in nil for the params hash in your example, then pass in your desired session parameters:

get :index, nil, {coupon: 'abcd'}

I recommend a thorough reading of the Rails guide for anyone using RSpec for Rails testing. rspec-rails leverages the existing Rails test classes, a point which is not made very clear in the rspec-rails docs.