rspec - How to test ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound?

Question

I have a method to update people\'s attribute, and it will rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound if the people cannot be found. The method is:

  def u         


        

Answer 1

This is not a good solution to begin with. In Rails you want to use rescue_from to handle common errors on the controller level.

class ApplicationController
  rescue_from ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, with: :not_found

  def not_found
    respond_to do |format|
      format.json { head :404 }
    end
  end
end

This lets you use inheritance to DRY your code.

render json: { error: 'Failed') }

Is a huge anti-pattern. If the request failed you should tell the client by sending the correct HTTP status code. Don't reinvent the wheel. Especially not when your solution is a square wheel. If your JS relies on monkeying around with a json response to see if the request was a success or not you're doing it wrong.

If you want to test that your controller handles a missing resource correctly you would do:

let(:people) { create(:people) }
let(:people_id) { people.id }
let(:user) { people}

it "returns the correct response code if the person cannot be found" do
  get '/people/notarealid'
  expect(response).to have_http_status :not_found
end

This does not use any stubbing and actually tests the implementation.