Specifying Content Type in rspec

Question

I'm trying to build an rspec test that sends JSON (or XML) via POST. However, I can't seem to actually get it working:

    json = {.... data ....}.to_json
    post '/model1.json',json,{'CONTENT_TYPE'=>'application/json'}

and this

    json = {.... data ....}.to_json
    post '/model1.json',json,{'Content-Type'=>'application/json'}

any ideas? THANKS!

Solution 1

There's a way to do this described in this thread -- it's a hack, but it seems to work:

@request.env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] = "application/json"
json = { ... data ... }.to_json
post :create, :some_param => json

Solution 2

In Rails 3, you can skip the header and @request.env stuff and just add a format parameter to your post call, e.g.:

post :create, format: :json, param: 'Value of Param'

Solution 3

A lot of frustration and variations and that's what worked for me. Rails 3.2.12 Rspec 2.10

 @request.env["HTTP_ACCEPT"] = "application/json"
 @request.env["CONTENT_TYPE"] = "application/json"
 put :update, :id => 1, "email" => "[email protected]"

Solution 4

First of all, you don't want to test the built-in conversion of json to hash. Same applies to xml.

You test controller with data as hashes, not bothering wether it's json, xml or from a html form.

But if you would like to do that as an exercise, this is a standalone ruby script to do play with :)

require 'json'
url = URI.parse('http://localhost:3030/mymodels.json')
request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)
request.content_type="application/json"
request.basic_auth('username', 'password')  #if used, else comment out

hash = {:mymodel => {:name => "Test Name 1", :description => "some data for testing description"}}
request.body = hash.to_json
response = Net::HTTP.start(url.host, url.port) {|http| http.request(request)}
puts response

to switch to xml, use content_type="text/xml" and

request.body = "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><somedata><name>Test Name 1</name><description>Some data for testing</description></somedata>"

Solution 5

A slightly more elegant test is to use the header helper:

header "HTTP_ACCEPT", "application/json"
json = {.... data ....}.to_json
post '/model1.json', json

Now this does exactly the same thing as setting @env; it's just a bit prettier.

View more solutions

Comments

[BeepDog]

This works with Rspec 2 and rails 3. (and was extremely difficult to find) Actually, I had to not use .to_json on the thing to get it to behave correctly. Otherwise, everything else worked fine.

[Salil]

Thank you. I had a hard-time searching for solution to my failing tests before reading your answer.

[sorens]

I also found that request.accept = 'application/json' will work as well.

[Paul Brannan]

Where is this method defined? I get a NoMethodError when I try to call it.

[Kevin Gauthier]

@PaulBrannan It's in rack/test

[Romain Champourlier]

Thanks! I found out the one to work for me thanks to your answer: @request.env["CONTENT_TYPE"] = "application/json".

[Dennis]

Does using format: :json set request.accept and request.content_type to "application/json"?

[Dennis]

This issue on rspec-rails implies that format: :json is the same as request.accept = "application/json".

[dkniffin]

It looks like in later versions of rails/rspec, format: :json got changed to as: :json