Wrong behavior on RSpec expect change count with destroy

Question

I'm looking to have users only be able to delete the jobs that they've created themselves (not the jobs of others). I've verified that my app does do this through "rails server". However, the tests are coming out weird. Here are the tests in question: ``` require 'spec_helper' describe "Authentication" do subject { page } describe "signin" do [...] describe "authorization" do [...] describe "correct user control" do let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) } let(:job) { FactoryGirl.create(:job, user: user) } let(:wrong_user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user, email: "wrong@example.com") } let(:wrong_job) { FactoryGirl.create(:job, user: wrong_user) } before { sign_in user } [...] describe "users can only delete their own jobs" do it "should not change job count" do expect do delete job_path(wrong_job) end.to_not change(Job, :count) end end describe "users can delete their own jobs" do it "should decrease job count" do expect do delete job_path(job) end.to change(Job, :count).by(-1) end end end…

Accepted Answer

There are two problems:

As Jacek mentioned, `let` is evaluated lazily. That means that the code inside the block isn't run until the variable is used. Since the `job` variable is used for the first time within the `expect` blocks, the `job` count increases. If you want the code inside the `let` blocks to be run immediately, use the `let!` method.

`get`, `put`, `patch`, and `delete` should be used in controller tests, not integration tests:

```
# jobs_controller_spec.rb
delete :destroy, id: job
```

In integration tests, you should use Capybara to simulate user input:

```
# users_messing_around_with_jobs_spec.rb
click_button("Delete")
```

In your tests, `delete` doesn't do what you'd expect: for some reason it's mapped to `jobs#index`.

Wrong behavior on RSpec expect change count with destroy

Solution

Problem