Rspec-rails: Can't set the Content-Type in specs

[pawandubey]

I had previously had this in my controller specs:

post :operations, '1': @params, border: [0, 0, '#ffffff'], shave!: [0, 0], format: :json

But that fails to send the content as JSON anymore and I attributed that to the changed behaviour in rails for keyword arguments. So I changed that to this:

post :operations, params: { '1' => @params, 'border' => [0, 0, '#ffffff'], 'shave!' => [0, 0] }, headers: { 'Content-Type' => 'application/json' }

But when I inspect for headers, I still get this:

(byebug) headers
{"X-Frame-Options"=>"SAMEORIGIN", "X-XSS-Protection"=>"1; mode=block", "X-Content-Type-Options"=>"nosniff"}

Is this an issue with rspec?

[JonRowe]

This is a thin wrapper over the Rails helpers, what happens if you leave the params : { .. } but return to format: :json, the big change in Rails 5 was the need to pass params as a hash.

Where are you inspecting headers?

[pawandubey]

I am inspecting headers in the byebug console. The problem is that Rails is now stringifying all my params (even non-string types) and setting format: :json or the Content-Type explicitly doesn't handle this. I have multiple specs failing because of this even though the main app works fine.

[JonRowe]

Sorry, by inspecting headers, I meant where in your request cycle, e.g. where you are triggering byebug from.

All params are strings from a request perspective, are you attempting to test Rails 5 here? Is this an old controller spec? Have you installed rails-controller-testing?

Need more information to help :)

[pawandubey]

I triggered byebug from within the controller action I was testing(operations).
rails-controller-testing is indeed included in the :test group.

This is an old controller spec in the sense that we tested stuff on 4.2 with it. I am in the process of migrating to Rails 5 and the app runs fine but the tests fail. I have followed the multiple guides scattered around ( from Michael Scheenman and the official Rails Guides, for instance) for the upgrade path.

I am aware that all params are strings from the request perspective, but rails does a good job of converting a JSON payload to a Hash while preserving its types. This was also a problem as described in #610 but the solution no longer works.

[JonRowe]

This might be an issue to raise with the controller testing gem, I know theres been some load order issues though, did you try the require: false trick mentioned elsewhere?

[penelopezone]

This _might_ be us, we did change some of our interaction with the test request generation in 3.5.0

[pawandubey]

Considering it is an issue with you rspec-rails, is there a short term fix I can apply now or should I wait for the next release?

I think the issue is easy to reproduce and if you guys want, I can spin up a small repro app.

[JonRowe]

@pawandubey we don't know if this is an issue with rspec-rails yet

[alexsanford]

I can confirm this issue, and it looks like a problem with RSpec and the way Rails changed controller tests.

Here's my controller action:

  def create
    @widget = Widget.new(widget_params)

    @boolean_attr = params[:boolean_attr]

    respond_to do |format|
      ...
    end
  end

This TestUnit test passes:

  test "should have access to boolean attributes in JSON request" do
    post widgets_url, params: { widget: {  }, boolean_attr: true }, as: :json
    assert_same(assigns(:boolean_attr), true)
  end

This RSpec spec fails:

  it 'has access to boolean attributes in JSON request' do
    post :create, params: { widget: {  }, boolean_attr: true }, as: :json
    expect(assigns(:boolean_attr)).to be true
  end

(I'm on rails 5.0.0.1, rspec-rails 3.5.1, and rails-controller-testing 1.0.1)

Here is the problem:

Rails controller specs now inherit from ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest instead of ActionController::TestCase. But RSpec controller specs still use ActionController::TestCase which is deprecated.

When I step through in TestUnit, I get here. It's creating an encoder for the format given by the as attribute, in my case, :json.

But in RSpec, we end up here instead, and it appears that nobody has set the CONTENT_TYPE header at this point.

Here is a workaround that makes my spec pass:

  it 'has access to boolean attributes in JSON request' do
    request.content_type = 'application/json'
    post :create, params: { widget: {  }, boolean_attr: true }
    expect(assigns(:boolean_attr)).to be true
  end

Is RSpec going to follow along with Rails and move to integration tests instead of controller tests?

[bquorning]

Heavily inspired by @alexsanford’s comment above, I made a script that uses Minitest and RSpec to test against the same controller code: https://gist.github.com/bquorning/17380163dd0c1aee9dfac10a9495b628

One of the controller specs uses the workaround setting request.controller_type = "application/json" and passes. The other one doesn’t.

Both controller specs should probably use as: :json instead of format: :json, but I believe this has to do with the ActionController::TestCase/ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest switch as well.

[danReynolds]

@JonRowe any update on this issue? I am upgrading to Rails 5 and can currently use request.content_type = 'application/json'. Rails itself addressed this issue here: https://github.com/rails/rails/pull/26212 and it definitely looks like the problem is because rspec continues to use ActionController::TestCase

[JonRowe]

@danReynolds sounds like you have a handle on it, will happily review a PR if you think you've found a cause within RSpec.

[mrageh]

@JonRowe I've quickly skimmed through rspec-rails and I don't think there's an issue within the gem, the problem was in ActionController::TestCase. And that issue was fixed in rails/rails#26212.

[mrageh]

What's the status of this issue, it looks like this was fixed upstream in Rails 5.1.0

[pawandubey]

@mrageh It was fixed and even backported to 5.0, but I still get string types for float values in my controller tests using rails 5.0.1 (upgrading to 5.1 isn't an option right now).

[JonRowe]

Closing as this issue is upstream and has been fixed, hopefully they'll release a 5.0.2 for you @pawandubey

[serg-kovalev]

as a workaround for Rails 5.0.x, I'd suggest to use something like that:

  def permitted_params
    required_params  = params.permit(:boolean_attr, :other_params).to_h
    if required_params.has_key?(:boolean_attr)
      required_params[:boolean_attr] = ActiveModel::Type::Boolean.new.cast(required_params[:boolean_attr])
    end
    required_params
  end