Rspec undefined method `expects' for Object

Question

I have recently upgraded my ruby on rails project to rails 5.0.7 and ruby 2.5.1 and I am getting an RSPEC error undefined methodexpects' for` different objects I am testing.

I have tried adding a configuration in the spec_helper.rb file as suggested here (although I did a quick search and didn't find :should defined anywhere), here and here:

config.expect_with :rspec do |expectations|
  expectations.syntax = [:expect, :expects]
end

Also tried including include RSpec::Matchers in my spec_helper.rb, but then I get even more errors:

`only the `receive`, `have_received` and `receive_messages` matchers are supported with `expect(...).to`, but you have provided: #<RSpec::Matchers::BuiltIn::Eq:0x00007f962b3db058>`

An example of how I am using expect:

describe "process" do
before :each do
  @item = Item.new
end

it "parses the uploaded file and extract the correct report data" do
  item_a_data = {"name" => "one"}
  item_b_data = {"name" => "two"}
  file_contents = {"items" => [item_a_data, item_b_data]}
  @item.data_file = double("file", :read => file_contents.to_json)
  @item.name = item_a_data["name"]
  @item.expects(:interpret_json_file).with(@item.data_file).returns(file_contents)
  @item.expects(:save).returns(true)

  expect(@item.process_data_file).to be_truthy
  expect(@item.data).to eq item_a_data.to_json
end

Notice that the error occurs when I call @item.expects

In my Gemfile I have the following gems (among others):

group :development, :test do
  gem 'byebug'
  gem 'sqlite3'
  gem 'rspec-rails'
  gem 'rb-fsevent', '~> 0.9.1'
  gem 'guard-rspec', '4.7.3'
  gem 'guard-spork', '2.1.0'
  gem 'spork', '0.9.2'
  gem 'jasmine-rails'
  gem 'teaspoon-jasmine'
end

group :test do
  gem 'capybara'
  gem 'cucumber-rails', :require => false
  gem 'database_cleaner'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', '4.1.0'
  gem 'launchy'
  gem 'poltergeist'
  gem 'timecop'
  gem 'webmock'
  gem 'simplecov', '~> 0.16.0'
  gem 'rails-controller-testing'
end

spec_helper.rb:

require 'rubygems'
require 'spork'
#uncomment the following line to use spork with the debugger
#require 'spork/ext/ruby-debug'

Spork.prefork do
 require 'simplecov'
  SimpleCov.start 'rails'
  # This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install'
  ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
  require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
  require 'rspec/rails'
  require 'devise'
  require './spec/controllers/controller_helpers.rb'

  # Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
  # in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.
  Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

  RSpec.configure do |config|
    config.include Devise::Test::ControllerHelpers, type: :controller
    config.include ControllerHelpers, type: :controller

    config.include Capybara::DSL

    # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures
    config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"

    # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your
    # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false
    # instead of true.
    config.use_transactional_fixtures = true

    # If true, the base class of anonymous controllers will be inferred
    # automatically. This will be the default behavior in future versions of
    # rspec-rails.
    config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = false

    config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!

    # Run specs in random order to surface order dependencies. If you find an
    # order dependency and want to debug it, you can fix the order by providing
    # the seed, which is printed after each run.
    #     --seed 1234
    config.order = "random"
    config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods

    # config.expect_with :rspec do |expectations|
    #   expectations.syntax = :expect
    # end
 end
end

Spork.each_run do # This code will be run each time you run your specs. end

@marimaf are you sure that you do not have any typo for the expect method? basically the error says about undefined method expects and I do not remember that rspec had somewhere expects method. Can you please share the backtrace? — teckden
@teckden rspec/expectations has expect, and before upgrading rails the tests were running fine — marimaf
@marimaf I meant that your error says: "undefined method 'expects'" with "s" at the end that is why I thought that you have a typo somewhere. Also backtrace would be useful — teckden

teckden teckden · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-25T05:38:02

The solution would be to re-write it to the following syntax:

expect(@item).to receive(:interpret_json_file).with(@item.data_file) { file_contents } 
expect(@item).to receive(:save) { true }

Basically ActiveRecord model does not know about rspec expectations and it should not. If that specs were working before then you might used some decoration for ActiveRecord models and that is why it worked previously.

Rspec undefined method `expects' for Object

1 Answers