setting expectation on user instance in integration test with mocha and capybara

So I am trying to ensure that a callback happens on save... My test is:

user = create_user
login user

visit new_post_path
fill_in "post_title", :with => "my post"

user.expects(:publish_post!).once
click_button "post_submit"

and I get:

1) Failure: test: Post should place a post. (PostTest) [test/integration/post_test.rb:72:in __bind_1311708168_640179' /test/test_helper.rb:37:inexpectation_on' test/integration/post_test.rb:70:in `__bind_1311708168_640179']: not all expectations were satisfied unsatisfied expectations: - expected exactly once, not yet invoked: #.publish_post!(any_parameters) satisfied expectations: - allowed any number of times, not yet invoked: Post(id: integer, title: string, method_of_exchange: string, you_tube_url: string, lat: decimal, lng: decimal, bounty: integer, distance: integer, user_id: integer, consider_similar_offers: boolean, description: text, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime, address: string, city: string, state: string, zip: string, country: string, county: string, category_id: integer, slug: string, status: string, popularity: integer, delta: boolean, share_count: integer, needs_reply: decimal, needs_offer: decimal, district: string).facets(any_parameters) - allowed any number of times, not yet invoked: {}.for(any_parameters) - expected never, not yet invoked: #.publish_post!(any_parameters)

Yet my post model does:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
  after_create :publish

  def publish
    user.publish_post!
  end
end

and my posts controller's create action does indeed assign the user the the post...

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def create
    post = Post.new(params[:post]开发者_StackOverflow社区)
    post.user = current_user
    post.save
  end
end

...

The functionality works fine when testing manually.. So I don't get why this is not working when automated?

I really wouldn't try to use mocking expectations in an integration test. That kind of testing belongs in low-level unit tests for the Post class itself. Try to think about integration tests as just looking at the system from the outside, as a user would. What effect does the callback have? Can you just check for the outcome of that effect?