RSpec controller spec is acting like a request spec

Question

Rails 5.0.0.rc1
rspec-core@a99ff26
rspec-rails@052206f

I have a controller spec that looks roughly like this:

require "rails_helper"

RSpec.describe InquiriesController, type: :controller do
  describe "#create" do
    let(:inquiry_attributes) { attributes_for(:inquiry) }

    before do
      post :create, inquiry: inquiry_attributes
    end

    it "whatever" do
      expect(2).to be 2
    end
  end
end

This lives in spec/controllers/inquiries_controller_spec.rb, so RSpec should not be inferring that it's a request spec based on its location.

When I run this spec, I get the following error:

1) InquiriesController#create whatever
   Failure/Error: post :create, inquiry: inquiry_attributes

   URI::InvalidURIError:
     bad URI(is not URI?): create
     # /Users/spetryk/.gem/ruby/2.3.1/gems/rack-test-0.6.3/lib/rack/test.rb:193:in `env_for'
     # /Users/spetryk/.gem/ruby/2.3.1/gems/rack-test-0.6.3/lib/rack/test.rb:66:in `post'

Hmm, it seems that post is coming from Rack. Not sure why. Here's my spec_helper and rails_helper:

spec_helper.rb

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.expect_with :rspec do |expectations|
    expectations.include_chain_clauses_in_custom_matcher_descriptions = true
  end

  config.mock_with :rspec do |mocks|
    mocks.verify_partial_doubles = true
  end

  config.filter_run focus: true
  config.run_all_when_everything_filtered = true
end

rails_helper.rb

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= "test"
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)

abort("The Rails environment is running in production mode!") if Rails.env.production?

require "spec_helper"
require "rspec/rails"
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each { |f| require f }

ActiveRecord::Migration.maintain_test_schema!

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true

  # Yes, I've tried removing this line
  config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!

  config.filter_rails_from_backtrace!

  config.include Rails.application.routes.url_helpers
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
end

My InquiriesController lives in app/controllers/inquiries_controller.rb, is not underneath a module, and the route is wired up correctly (I verified this by manually visiting it and verifying that it works). The method is indeed named create and I've done this successfully with other projects.

It might be worth noting that changing :create to /inquiries makes the spec pass. — Steven Petryk
You can accept your own answer after 48 hours. See stackoverflow.com/help/self-answer — Holger Just
@HolgerJust I know, but I wanted to avoid people wasting their time looking at this :) — Steven Petryk

Steven Petryk Steven Petryk · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-23T14:45:08

I found out what was happening. I had mindlessly copied a company-standard spec_helper that included Rack::Test::Methods, injecting the Rack methods into all of my tests.

RSpec controller spec is acting like a request spec

1 Answers