RackBox

RackBox adds Merb-style blackbox testing]blackbox] to Rack apps (including Rails)

This currently only works with RSpec.

Screencast

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Installation

    $ sudo gem install remi-rackbox -s http://gems.github.com

NOTE: right now, RackBox requires thin. Soon, I‘ll likely remove thin as a dependency and will only require rack.

Rails (fast!)

    $ sudo gem install rspec rspec-rails thin
    $ sudo gem install remi-rackbox -s http://gems.github.com

    $ rails new_app
    $ cd new_app
    $ ./script/generate rspec
    $ ./script/generate blackbox_spec Home Page

    $ rake spec

Rails (manual)

To write RackBox tests in Rails apps, make a `blackbox` directory under your `spec` directory and add this to the Spec configure block in your `spec_helper.rb` file:

    config.use_blackbox = true

Also, add `require ‘rackbox’` to the top of your `spec_helper.rb`

You can see a working example of blackbox testing a Rails application here: examples/rails](github.com/remi/rackbox/tree/master/examples/rails)

Rack

To write RackBox tests in Rack apps, I‘m currently assuming that you have a `config.ru` rackup file. If so, your app should load, otherwise you can explicitly configure RackBox to read your Rack app:

    RackBox.app = your Rack app]

Basides that, the configuration is the same as Rails. Make a `blackbox` directory under your `spec` directory and add this to the Spec configure block in your `spec_helper.rb` file:

    config.use_blackbox = true

Also, add `require ‘rackbox’` to the top of your `spec_helper.rb`

You can see a working example of blackbox testing a Rack application here: examples/rack](github.com/remi/rackbox/tree/master/examples/rack)

NOTE: If you want to be able to use nice RSpec matchers like `request(’/’).should have_tag(‘p’)` in your blackbox specs in your Rack apps, you should `sudo gem install webrat` and RackBox will include Webrat‘s helpers in your specs.

Usage

Ideally, the usage of RackBox should be identical to Merb-style blackbox testing. I need to find good documentation on how things work in Merb so I can duplicate any functionality I‘m missing. For now, it‘s really simple!

    describe Foo do

      it 'should have foxes on the home page' do
        request('/').body.should include('Foxes')
      end

      it 'should let me know that I was logged in' do
        response = request(login_path, :method => :post, :params => { 'user' => 'bob', :password => 'secret' })
        response.body.should include('Welcome bob, you were successfully logged in!')
      end

    end

`request` gives you a `Rack::Response`](rack.rubyforge.org/doc/classes/Rack/Response.html) which has `body`, `headers`, `status` methods (and more](rack.rubyforge.org/doc/classes/Rack/Response.html))

TODO

• request(’/’, :data => ‘some XML or something’)
• request(’/’, :format => :json) # simple helpers for content type request accepts
• request(’/’, ‘Content-Length’ => ‘x’) # anything passed in that we don‘t handle, throw into the request ENV … but :content_length should work too?
• get usage documentation working for `./script/generate blackbox_spec`