Rspec for helper fails after upgrade to rails 4.0.0.rc2

Question

I'm following the rails tutorial, have finished chapter 5 and decided to upgrade from Rails 4 beta1 to the newly released rc2. And the specs now fail.

... application_helper_spec.rb:3:in `<top (required)>':
      uninitialized constant ApplicationHelper (NameError)

I've wiped and recreated the spec_helper.rb file with rm and bundle exec rspec --init which solved my first issue. I'm stumped on the second issue which is that the spec isn't finding the application helper I've defined.

Full error output:

tim@atom:~/repo/rails_tutorial_sample_app$ bundle exec rspec
No DRb server is running. Running in local process instead ...
/home/tim/repo/rails_tutorial_sample_app/spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb:3:in `<top (required)>': uninitialized constant ApplicationHelper (NameError)
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:819:in `load'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:819:in `block in load_spec_files'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:819:in `each'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:819:in `load_spec_files'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/command_line.rb:22:in `run'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:77:in `rescue in run'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:73:in `run'
    from /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/rspec-core-2.13.1/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:17:in `block in autorun'

I don't understand how it loads things well enough to troubleshoot it. I read through Rails/RSpec - writing tests for original helper methods and everything this refers to seems in order.

Here are the two apparently relevant files:

spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb

require 'spec_helper'

describe ApplicationHelper do
  describe "full_title" do
    it "should include the page title" do
      expect(full_title("foo")).to match(/foo/)
    end

    it "should include the base title" do
      expect(full_title("foo")).to match(/^Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App/)
    end

    it "should not include a bar for the home page" do
      expect(full_title("")).not_to match(/\|/)
    end
  end
end

app/helpers/application_helper.rb

module ApplicationHelper

  # full title on per page basis
  def full_title(page_title)
    base_title = "Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App"
    if page_title.empty?
      base_title
    else
      "#{base_title} | #{page_title}"
    end
  end
end

My full sources are at https://github.com/timabell/rails_tutorial_sample_app/tree/4b3d93bbfdb0adb36b87b760c90c3bdda87def16

Halp! I like being in at the deep end but I think I just drowned...

try `rails g rspec:install` - your current spec_helper looks wrong. — muttonlamb, Jun 13 '13 at 03:41
hrmm, that command throws the error I got before. `bundle exec rails g rspec:install /home/tim/.rbenv/versions/2.0.0-p0/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/railties-4.0.0.rc2/lib/rails/application/configuration.rb:144:in \`const_get': uninitialized constant ActionDispatch::Session::EncryptedCookieStore (NameError)` ... — Tim Abell, Jun 13 '13 at 07:51
I'll take a look at http://stackoverflow.com/a/15849479/10245 and come back, looks like the same thing as I have. — Tim Abell, Jun 13 '13 at 07:53

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 13 '13 at 18:43

The Rails Core team made some changes for the RC that broke the beta1 tests, so you'll have to change them. The tutorial has been updated, but if you followed the old version there are some outdated tests in your current code base that should be removed. In addition to backtracking a little in the book, I suggest taking a look at the latest version of the sample app code (which I just updated to use Rails 4.0 RC2). That should help you track down the proper replacements for the broken tests.

Rspec for helper fails after upgrade to rails 4.0.0.rc2

1 Answers1