[rspec-users] fills_in NoMethodError

David Chelimsky
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:20:01 -0000

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 3:05 AM, Matt Wynne <matt at mattwynne.net>
wrote:
> Do we need to make it a bit clearer on the rspec.info site that cucumber is
> the way forward? The trail of blog posts etc with the up-to-date info is
> probably fairly bewildering to a newbie.

I updated the website (just a quick few tweaks).

FYI - the website is in the rspec-dev project on github:

http://github.com/dchelimsky/rspec-dev

Please feel absolutely free at any time to contribute patches to this
if you learn info that you think should be up there.

Thanks,
David

>
> On 9 Oct 2008, at 19:38, Mark Thomson wrote:
>
>> Thanks guys. I took your advice and moved to cucumber. It did turn out
to
>> be useful in that the more verbose error reporting led me to dive more
>> deeply into the webrat source, eventually leading me to my problem -
which
>> actually was essentially the same noob error I made a few days when I
failed
>> to realize my development code had a data migration that
hadn''t populated
>> the test db.
>>
>> In this case the updated form mentioned in my earlier post had
selection
>> inputs whose options are meant to be stored in the db. Since they
weren''t
>> actually there, there were no select options in the form.
>>
>> What was puzzling initially was that an error related to selection
inputs
>> was showing up in the fills_in call. But it turns out that webrat looks
for
>> the named text field by searching over all the input tags in the form.
In
>> the process of parsing the selection inputs it was throwing up when it
>> didn''t find the option tags it was expecting.
>>
>> Mark.
>>
>>
>>
>> David Chelimsky wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 1:57 AM, Matt Wynne <matt at
mattwynne.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 9 Oct 2008, at 02:55, Mark Thomson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I have an RSpec story with an overall structure that looks
something
>>>>> like
>>>>> this -
>>>>>
>>>>> ----
>>>>> Given the user is on the start page
>>>>> When the user clicks the ''new'' button
>>>>> Then the ''new record'' page should be
displayed
>>>>>
>>>>> When the user fills in the form
>>>>> And the user submits the form
>>>>> Then the updated form should be displayed
>>>>>
>>>>> When the user fills in the updated form
>>>>> And the user submits the form
>>>>> Then a conformation message should be displayed
>>>>> ----
>>>>>
>>>>> In the last When step, I have a fills_in call that is
failing with the
>>>>> following:
>>>>>
>>>>> ----
>>>>> NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you
didn''t expect it! You
>>>>> might
>>>>> have expected an instance of ActiveRecord::Base. The error
occurred
>>>>> while
>>>>> evaluating nil.attributes.
>>>>> ----
>>>>>
>>>>> I think the ActiveRecord thing is a red herring. Poking
through the
>>>>> Webrat
>>>>> source code, it seems like the problem is more likely a
failure to find
>>>>> any
>>>>> input fields. But I''m not sure why. Is there
anything inappropriate
>>>>> with the
>>>>> way I''ve organized the story, stringing together
multiple When-Then
>>>>> segments? One thing that seems curious is that I have a
completely
>>>>> identical
>>>>> fills_in call in the When step that precedes the one that
is failing
>>>>> and yet
>>>>> that one runs without any problem.
>>>>>
>>>> I think this sort of error tends to happen while a view is
being
>>>> rendered,
>>>> so my guess is it''s something to do with your data
setup.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to bang on about this, but cucumber has much better
support for
>>>> error
>>>> messages - you might want to consider making the switch before
you waste
>>>> too
>>>> much time on this issue.
>>>>
>>> Matt is correct, you should definitely consider moving to cucumber,
>>> though I don''t know that cucumber will necessary help you
shed any
>>> more light on this particular issue.
>>>
>>> Mark, with the little bit of information you''ve provided,
my best
>>> guess would be that the :new action is providing some instance
>>> variable that is not being provided by the :create action in the
case
>>> where the data from "When the user fills in the form" is
incorrect or
>>> insufficient to save the model.
>>>
>>> If that''s not correct, please post the code for the steps
and the
>>> relevant controller actions.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> David
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> rspec-users mailing list
>>> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
>>> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
>>>
>>>
>>>
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