Ruby Build a Todo List Application with Rails 4 Build a Todo List Application with Rails 4 Viewing Todo Lists

Posted by Francesco Mari
Francesco Mari
11,041 Points

todo_items/show view testing

Why this rspec test doesn't work (throws "undefined method `todo_items' for nil:NilClass")

require 'spec_helper'
describe "todo_lists/show" do
  before(:each) do
    @todo_list = assign(:todo_list, stub_model(TodoList,
      :title => "Title",
      :description => "MyText"
    ))
  end

  @todo_list.todo_items.create(content: 'Eggs', completed_at: 5.minutes.ago)
  @todo_list.todo_items.create(content: 'Milk')
  it "show completed items in ul#completed_item " do
    within "ul#completed_items" do
      expect(page).to have_content('Eggs')
      expect(page).to not_have_content('Milk')
    end
  end
end

...while if I put the create statements inside the it example it seems correct?

require 'spec_helper'
describe "todo_lists/show" do
  before(:each) do
    @todo_list = assign(:todo_list, stub_model(TodoList,
      :title => "Title",
      :description => "MyText"
    ))
  end

  it "show completed items in ul#completed_item " do
    @todo_list.todo_items.create(content: 'Eggs', completed_at: 5.minutes.ago)
    @todo_list.todo_items.create(content: 'Milk')
    within "ul#completed_items" do
      expect(page).to have_content('Eggs')
      expect(page).to not_have_content('Milk')
    end
  end
end

1 Answer

David O' Rojo
David O' Rojo
11,050 Points
David O' Rojo
David O' Rojo
11,050 Points

The first code shows an error because @todo_list is defined inside the before block scope. This makes @todo_list not available on the main body of the describe block scope, but it is available for the scope of the examples (it) so the second code works as expected.

Check the answers to the question How do instance variables on RSpec work.