How to test a search controller action which has filters in Rails with RSpec?

We have a bar with filters in almost all of our table-based views in a rails app and we need to test the controller action.

An example of the code:

def index
  @users = User.
    with_status(params[:status]).
    with_role(params[:role_id]).
    search(p开发者_运维技巧arams[:q])
end

The above methods are ActiveRecord scopes which are setup to be bypassed if the passed value if blank.

What I need to do now is spec it sanely and test all the esge cases:

• no params passed
• only role, only status, only search
• role + status, role + search, ... (pairs of 2)
• role + status + search

The basic spec example I have written is as follows:

context "when filtering by status" do
  before do
    1.times { Factory(:user, :status => "one") }
    3.times { Factory(:user, :status => "other") }
  end

  it "returns only users with the provided :status" do
    get :index, :status => "one"

    assigns(:users).size.should == 1
    assigns(:users)[0].status.should == "one"
  end
end

I want to write a matrix that will mix and match the role, status and search params and generate the appropriate spec examples.

Is the Array#permutation the solution or is there a better way to do it?

I would test the scopes in the model, so make sure that they can handle the blank value correctly, and also handle the set value correctly.

Then inside the controller, I would test the expectation that the chain is called (use stub_chain). The fact that the chain will return the correct result is handled by the fact that each scope individually has the correct behaviour (you tested that), and the combined behaviour is ensured by rails/activerecord. You should test the passed parameters are handled correctly.

The code you built to test the matrix is very impressive. But for me I try to make sure that my tests are readable, I consider them a kind of documentation of what a piece code is expected to do. To me your code is not comprehensible at first sight.

Hope this helps.