Memo #6: Using named routes and url_for outside the controller in Ruby on Rails

Dmytro Shteflyuk — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:11:50 +0000

Sometimes we need to write small console scripts which do some background processing on our models. In Scribd we are using Loops to run these tasks (check Alexey Kovyrin’s introduction post). One of our scripts supposed to generate some sort of html reports, and we need to generate links to our site there.

In Ruby on Rails we are using routes to generate any sort of links. So let’s include routing mechanism into our own script or class.

First, you need to ensure that Rails core is loaded (if you haven’t done this earlier; for example, in script/console you should not do this). I’m assuming you’re creating a script under /script folder:

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ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../config/boot'
require RAILS_ROOT + '/config/environment'

Now you need to include ActionController::UrlWriter module, which allows to write URLs from arbitrary places in your codebase, and configure default_url_options[:host]:

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# this is slow because all routes and resources being calculated now
include ActionController::UrlWriter
default_url_options[:host] = 'www.example.com'

# map.connect ':controller/:action/:id'
url_for(:controller => 'folders', :action => 'show', :id => Folder.first)
# => "http://www.example.com/folders/2"

# map.resources :folders
folders_url
# => "http://www.example.com/folders"
folder_url(Folder.first)
# => "http://www.example.com/folders/2"
edit_folder_url(Folder.first)
# => "http://www.example.com/folders/2/edit"

# you can use relative paths too
folders_path
# => "/folders"

Easy and helpful technique. Enjoy!

The post Memo #6: Using named routes and url_for outside the controller in Ruby on Rails first appeared on Dmytro Shteflyuk's Home.

Testing mailers with RSpec

Dmytro Shteflyuk — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 05:42:22 +0000

Unfortunately, RSpec does not provide helpers for testing mailers like TestUnit. But it is easy to add them to your application, and here you could find code snippet for testing mailers.

For the beginning we would define helper for reading fixtures and put them into the spec/mailer_spec_helper.rb file:

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require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/spec_helper.rb'

module MailerSpecHelper
private

def read_fixture(action)
IO.readlines("#{FIXTURES_PATH}/mailers/user_mailer/#{action}")
end
end

Now we need to create fixtures for mailers in the spec/fixtures/mailers folder, each mailer in the separate subfolder like spec/fixtures/mailers/some_mailer/activation:

1	Hello, Bob

In spec/models/mailers/some_mailer_spec.rb we would write something like:

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require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../mailer_spec_helper.rb'

context 'The SomeMailer mailer' do
FIXTURES_PATH = File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../fixtures'
CHARSET = 'utf-8'

fixtures :users

include MailerSpecHelper
include ActionMailer::Quoting

setup do
# You don't need these lines while you are using create_ instead of deliver_
#ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :test
#ActionMailer::Base.perform_deliveries = true
#ActionMailer::Base.deliveries = []

@expected = TMail::Mail.new
@expected.set_content_type 'text', 'plain', { 'charset' => CHARSET }
@expected.mime_version = '1.0'
end

specify 'should send activation email' do
@expected.subject = 'Account activation'
@expected.body = read_fixture('activation')
@expected.from = '[email protected]'
@expected.to = users(:bob).email

Mailers::UserMailer.create_activation(users(:bob)).encoded.should == @expected.encoded
end
end

That’s almost all. We are fully confident that emails look as we expected. In controller we don’t need to re-test mailers again, we just need to become convinced of mailer calling!

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context 'Given an signup action of UserController' do
controller_name 'user'

setup do
@user = mock('user')
@valid_user_params = { :email => '[email protected]' }
end

specify 'should deliver activation email to newly created user' do
User.should_receive(:new).with(@valid_user_params).and_return(@user)
Mailers::UserMailer.should_receive(:deliver_activation).with(@user)
post :signup, :user => @valid_user_params
response.should redirect_to(user_activate_url)
end
end

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Memo #6: Using named routes and url_for outside the controller in Ruby on Rails

Testing mailers with RSpec