What is the subject of Rspecs its method
- by Steve Weet
When you use the its method in rspec like follows its(:code) { should eql(0)} what is 'its' referring to.
I have the following spec that works fine
describe AdminlwController do
shared_examples_for "valid status" do
it { should be_an_instance_of(Api::SoapStatus) }
it "should have a code of 0" do
subject.code.should eql(0)
end
it "should have an empty errors array" do
subject.errors.should be_an(Array)
subject.errors.should be_empty
end
#its(:code) { should eql(0)}
end
describe "Countries API Reply" do
before :each do
co1 = Factory(:country)
co2 = Factory(:country)
@result = invoke :GetCountryList, "empty_auth"
end
subject { @result }
it { should be_an_instance_of(Api::GetCountryListReply) }
describe "Country List" do
subject {@result.country_list}
it { should be_an_instance_of(Array) }
it { should have(2).items }
it "should have countries in the list" do
subject.each {|c| c.should be_an_instance_of(Api::Country)}
end
end
describe "result status" do
subject { @result.status }
it_should_behave_like "valid status"
end
end
However if I then uncomment the line with its(:code) then I get the following output
AdminlwController Countries API Reply
- should be an instance of Api::GetCountryListReply
AdminlwController Countries API Reply Country List
- should be an instance of Array
- should have 2 items
- should have countries in the list
AdminlwController Countries API Reply result status
- should be an instance of Api::SoapStatus
- should have a code of 0
- should have an empty errors array
AdminlwController Countries API Reply result status code
- should be empty (FAILED - 1)
1)
NoMethodError in 'AdminlwController Countries API Reply result status code should be empty'
undefined method code for <AdminlwController:0x40fc4dc>
/Users/steveweet/romad_current/romad/spec/controllers/adminlw_controller_spec.rb:29:
Finished in 0.741599 seconds
8 examples, 1 failure
It seems as if "its" is referring to the subject of the whole test, namely AdminLwController rather than the current subject.
Am I doing something wrong or is this an Rspec oddity?
