Building off of my last post on Stories, I’d like to show you some improvements I was able to make with the help of WebRat.
You can install WebRat using:
script/plugin install http://svn.eastmedia.net/public/plugins/webrat/
I got the inspiration from Ben Mabey at ‘ben.send :blog’ which illustrates an approach to stories that is unbelievably easy to pick up. He also provides source code to the example that he’s built so that you can play with it. Very cool!
I snagged that source myself and started playing with it, and added a lot of functionality of my own that I found useful. The real cool thing is that the ONLY application specific code I have is this:
# user_steps.rb
steps_for(:user) do
Given("that $actor is not logged in") do |actor|
get "/sessions/destroy"
response.should be_redirect
flash[:notice].should == "You have been logged out."
#fails here even though in the next request it will pass
#controller.should_not be_logged_in
end
Then("$actor $should be logged in") do |actor, should|
controller.send(shouldify(should), be_logged_in)
end
end
# navigation_steps.rb
def path_from_descriptive_name(page_name)
case page_name
when "home"
""
when "signup"
"users/new"
when "login"
"sessions/new"
else
"#{page_name}"
end
end
With that, and the generic application-independent helper methods that also live in my steps directory, I can write the following story:
Story: Making posts
As a visitor
I want to be a member
So that I can make posts
Scenario: Glenn creates a new account
Given that Glenn is not logged in
And there are some number of users
And no user with login 'Glenn' exists
When he goes to the signup page
And fills in Login with 'Glenn'
And fills in Email with 'glenn@glennfu.com'
And fills in Password with 'blah'
And fills in Confirm Password with 'blah'
And clicks the 'Sign up' button
Then there should be 1 more user
And a user with login 'Glenn' should exist
Scenario: Glenn logs in
GivenScenario Glenn creates a new account
When Glenn goes to the login page
And fills in Login with 'Glenn'
And fills in Password with 'blah'
Then he should be logged in
Scenario: A member makes a post while logged in
GivenScenario Glenn logs in
And there are some number of posts
When he goes to the posts page
And clicks on 'New post'
And fills in Title with 'Woo'
And fills in body with 'Stuff here'
And clicks the 'Create' button
Then there should be 1 more post
And a post with title 'Woo' should exist
Scenario: A nice lady makes a post while not logged in
Given that she is not logged in
Then she should not be logged in
Given there are some number of posts
When she goes to the posts page
And clicks on 'New post'
Then she should see the login page
Scenario: An angry visitor should be able to see posts
Given that he is not logged in
When he goes to the posts page
Then he better not f'ing see the login page
Scenario: A visitor should not be able to edit posts
GivenScenario A member makes a post while logged in
And that she is not logged in
When she goes to the posts page
And clicks on 'Edit'
Then she should see the login page
Pretty cool, huh? I was even able to add some personality with the angry visitor Scenario. Notice that I don’t have any steps written about Posts or my PostsController. I don’t need it because I have generic model steps that parse the model from the text in my PlainText instructions. It has all the basics that you need. You interact with forms and links on the top level by name, and then check the results either by text on the page or by finding models.
If you’d like to play with it yourself, I’ve zipped up my stories folder for you to play with.
It also has the old user_story.rb from the previous example. If you have any suggestions for improvements to this or ideas for something else I should do with it, please leave a comment!
My only quirk with this is that if you check the first step in the steps_for(:user) above you’ll see I have a line commented out. It checks for controller.should_not be_logged_in and if I uncomment it, the check fails even though the two above it pass. As you can see in the PlainText, on the very next line I call the very same check and it passes. If you could help me figure out my mistake here I’d really appreciate you leaving a comment with your thoughts!
I hope you find this useful, and if so, be sure to go toss a thank you over to Ben for the inspiration.