RSpec fails because actual redirect has a flash message

ThingsController:

...

respond_to do |format|
  format.html {redirect_to(:action => "new", :notice => "its a good thing!")}  # suspect...
end

When I test this code

  it "should redirect to /employees/new with a success notice" do
    post :create, :emp开发者_JAVA百科loyee => Factory.build(:employee).attributes
    response.should redirect_to(:action => "new")
    flash[:notice].should_not be_nil
  end

The test fails because it does NOT expect the actual redirection to have a notice.

Any suggestions?

Yes, I have suggestion: test different things on different lines.

response.should redirect_to(new_thing_path)
flash[:notice].should eql("its a good thing!")

This way, if the redirect_to fails it will fail on that line, and if the flash[:notice] is broken it will fail on that line.

Additionally, your test should work.

I know you already have an answer accepted, but I wanted to provide more insight on the issue here. The real reason your original code was failing is because this:

redirect_to(:action => "new", :notice => "its a good thing!")

Is essentially the same as this:

url = url_for(:action => "new", :notice => "its a good thing!")
redirect_to(url)

In the above, it's easier to see that the value of url will assume that :notice is a parameter you're trying to pass as part of the URL. What you're trying to do is pass :notice as an option to redirect_to, but it's being merged with your other hash options to form a URL.

Here are two (untested) solutions to try:

redirect_to({:action => "new"}, {:notice => "its a good thing!"})

or:

redirect_to(url_for(:action => "new"), :notice => "its a good thing!")