shoulda-matchers

shoulda-matchers provides Test::Unit- and RSpec-compatible one-liners that test common Rails functionality. These tests would otherwise be much longer, more complex, and error-prone.

ActiveModel Matchers

allow_mass_assignment_of tests usage of Rails 3's attr_accessible and attr_protected macros.
allow_value tests usage of the validates_format_of validation.
validate_inclusion_of tests usage of validates_inclusion_of.
validate_exclusion_of tests usage of validates_exclusion_of.
ensure_length_of tests usage of validates_length_of.
have_secure_password tests usage of has_secure_password.
validate_confirmation_of tests usage of validates_confirmation_of.
validate_numericality_of tests usage of validates_numericality_of.
validate_presence_of tests usage of validates_presence_of.
validate_uniqueness_of tests usage of validates_uniqueness_of.

ActiveRecord Matchers

accept_nested_attributes_for tests usage of the accepts_nested_attributes_for macro.
belong_to tests your belongs_to associations.
define_enum_for tests usage of the enum macro.
have_many tests your has_many associations.
have_one tests your has_one associations.
have_and_belong_to_many tests your has_and_belongs_to_many associations.
have_db_column tests that the table that backs your model has a specific column.
have_db_index tests that the table that backs your model has an index on a specific column.
have_readonly_attribute tests usage of the attr_readonly macro.
serialize tests usage of the serialize macro.

ActionController Matchers

filter_param tests parameter filtering configuration.
redirect_to tests that an action redirects to a certain location.
render_template tests that an action renders a template.
render_with_layout tests that an action is rendered with a certain layout.
rescue_from tests usage of the rescue_from macro.
respond_with tests that an action responds with a certain status code.
route tests your routes.
set_session makes assertions on the session hash.
set_the_flash makes assertions on the flash hash.

Independent Matchers

delegate_method tests that an object forwards messages to other, internal objects by way of delegation.

Installation

RSpec

Include the gem in your Gemfile:

group :test do
  gem 'shoulda-matchers', require: false
end

Then require the gem following rspec-rails in your rails_helper (or spec_helper if you're using RSpec 2.x):

require 'rspec/rails'
require 'shoulda/matchers'

Test::Unit

shoulda-matchers was originally a component of Shoulda -- it's what provides the nice should syntax which is demonstrated below. For this reason, include it in your Gemfile instead:

group :test do
  gem 'shoulda'
end

Non-Rails apps

Once it is loaded, shoulda-matchers automatically includes itself into your test framework. It will mix in the appropriate matchers for ActiveRecord, ActiveModel, and ActionController depending on the modules that are available at runtime. For instance, in order to use the ActiveRecord matchers, ActiveRecord must be available beforehand.

If your application is on Rails, everything should "just work", as shoulda-matchers will most likely be declared after Rails in your Gemfile. If your application is on another framework such as Sinatra or Padrino, you may have a different setup, so you will want to ensure that you are requiring shoulda-matchers after the components of Rails you are using. For instance, if you wanted to use and test against ActiveModel, you'd say:

gem 'activemodel'
gem 'shoulda-matchers'

and not:

gem 'shoulda-matchers'
gem 'activemodel'

Generating documentation

YARD is used to generate documentation, which can be viewed online. You can preview changes you make to the documentation locally by running

yard doc

from this directory. Then, open doc/index.html in your browser.

If you want to see a live preview as you work without having to run yard over and over again, keep this command running in a separate terminal session:

watchr docs.watchr

Versioning

shoulda-matchers follows Semantic Versioning 2.0 as defined at http://semver.org.

Credits

shoulda-matchers is maintained and funded by thoughtbot. Thank you to all the contributors.

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