[rspec-users] Cookies - how to set in controller specs?

[David Chelimsky]

On Jul 2, 2008, at 12:42 PM, Christopher Bailey wrote:

> First, nevermind!  Oy!  I finally figured it out.  The reason it
> wasn't working in my controller code was that I was checking for
> "cookies[:cookie_key]", not "request.cookies[:cookie_key]"!  It's a
> bit strange how that manifested, given the fact that referencing just
> "cookies" was a hash with values, but alas, that's what was happening.

According to the rails API docs you shouldn't have to do that:

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/Cookies.html

I figured out how to make this work. Here were the steps I took to get  
there and the solution:

   def some_action
     puts cookies.inspect, cookies[:cookie_key], cookies.class
   end

=> {:cookie_key=>"cookie value"}
=> nil
=> ActionController::CookieJar

So the object is not a Hash, it's a CookieJar, which acts as a proxy  
to a Hash. And guess what it does when it accesses the Hash?

   @cookies[name.to_s]

:)

So .........

This will actually work! I've proven it with an example that I've  
added to rspec-rails - http://github.com/dchelimsky/rspec-rails/tree/master/spec/rails/example/controller_spec_spec.rb 
  (look for "should support setting a cookie in the request"):

   request.cookies['cookie_key'] =  
CGI::Cookie.new('cookie_key','cookie value')

That will let you access the cookies as documented in the action.

I'm going to add some sort of support to rspec to make this a bit more  
user-friendly and less error prone. I'll follow up when I've done so.

Cheers,
David


>
>
> So, thank you very much for your time (that I essentially wasted :(
>
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:57 AM, Christopher Bailey <chris at cobaltedge.com 
> > wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:41 AM, David Chelimsky  
>> <dchelimsky at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Jul 2, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Christopher Bailey wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 4:06 AM, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky at gmail.com 
>>>> >
>>>> wrote:
>>>> <snip>
>>>>>
>>>>> This is just one of those goofy things in Rails testing. I'm not  
>>>>> sure
>>>>> the best way to make it easier in rspec without breaking existing
>>>>> examples in the process. Regardless, here's how you interact with
>>>>> cookies from an example:
>>>>>
>>>>> To set a cookie:
>>>>>
>>>>> request.cookies[:cookie_key] = CGI::Cookie.new('cookie_key',  
>>>>> 'cookie
>>>>> value')
>>>>
>>>> When I do this, in order to get to this cookie in my controller  
>>>> code,
>>>> I have to do
>>>>
>>>> cookies[:cookie_key][:cookie_key]
>>>
>>> Sorry Christopher - try this:
>>>
>>> request.cookies[:cookie_key] = 'cookie value'
>>
>> I tried that (see below in my email - I just mistakenly wrote it
>> without the "request." at the beginning).  When I do this, it appears
>> to set it, but then trying to retrieve it in my controller fails  
>> (even
>> though the key is there, and the value is there, when then requesting
>> cookies[:cookie_key] I get no value back).  Pretty weird.
>>
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> David
>>>
>>>> Basically, it appears that what it does is assign that key a hash  
>>>> of
>>>> its own.  That makes sense of course, as I realize a cookie is  
>>>> really
>>>> a hash of name, value, path, expires, and so on.  However, it  
>>>> doesn't
>>>> jive with the retrieval, as you shouldn't have to double  
>>>> reference it
>>>> (which I believe is essentially the point of the [] method on
>>>> ActionController::CookieJar and is not how things are documented).
>>>>
>>>> However, what's really behaving weird, is if I do:
>>>>
>>>> cookies[:cookie_key] = "1234"
>>>>
>>>> Then, in my controller code, if I look at "cookies", it shows that
>>>> cookies is a hash, and if I call .keys on it, it spits out
>>>> ":cookie_key", and if I call .values on it, it says "1234", but  
>>>> if I
>>>> then go and do cookies[:cookie_key], it gives me nil.
>>>>
>>>> Again, I have to suspect something weird going on with Rails test
>>>> environment/RSpec, since all this works fine outside of tests.  Any
>>>> suggestions on how to debug this further or what might be wrong?
>>>>
>>>> I should note I'm using Rails 2.1, and RSpec and rspec-rails from
>>>> about a week ago (from GitHub).
>>>>
>>>>> To read a cookie
>>>>>
>>>>> response.cookies[:cookie_key].should == ["expected value"]
>>>>>
>>>>> or
>>>>>
>>>>> cookies[:cookie_key].should == ["expected value"]
>>>>>
>>>>> Rails provides a cookies object that is actually  
>>>>> response.cookies, so
>>>>> you don't *have* to reference it through the response object. I  
>>>>> would,
>>>>> however, as I've been known to try to set a cookie in an example  
>>>>> using
>>>>> cookies when I should have been using request.cookies. So I try to
>>>>> keep them explicit.
>>>>>
>>>>> HTH,
>>>>> David
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> rspec-users mailing list
>>>>> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
>>>>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Christopher Bailey
>>>> Cobalt Edge LLC
>>>> http://cobaltedge.com
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>>>> rspec-users mailing list
>>>> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
>>>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Christopher Bailey
>> Cobalt Edge LLC
>> http://cobaltedge.com
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Christopher Bailey
> Cobalt Edge LLC
> http://cobaltedge.com
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