Cucumber, Merb and CouchDB - Win (Finally)

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Sometimes it really pays to look at the source code.

Recall from yesterday's link in the chain that I was having difficulty reminiscent of http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/176289. Despite my best efforts to follow the steps described, I was still getting:

Loading /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/environments/development.rb
Feature: See a meal  # features/browse_meals.feature

  So that I can see an old meal
  As a web user
  I want to browse a single meal by permalink
  Scenario: View Meal                                # features/browse_meals.feature:6
    Given a "Breakfast Elves" meal                   # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:1
    When I view the meal permalink                   # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:8
    Then the title should include "Breakfast Elves"  # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:12
      undefined local variable or method `response' for # (NameError)
      ./features/steps/browse_meals.rb:13:in `Then /^the title should include "(.+)"$/'
      features/browse_meals.feature:9:in `Then the title should include "Breakfast Elves"'


1 scenario
2 steps passed
1 step failed
rake aborted!

Rather than posting a follow-up question, I looked at the commit history for the project. There are relatively few around the time of the ruby forum thread, so I poked through and found this commit. The examples in there all contain response_body.should rather than the response.should that I had used in my Sintra spike. So let's give that a try...

From the Top

To eliminate all doubt, I will start from scratch. First, I need to install the gem:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-merb$ gem install jsmestad-merb_cucumber
WARNING:  Installing to ~/.gem since /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8 and
          /usr/bin aren't both writable.
Successfully installed jsmestad-merb_cucumber-0.5.1.3
1 gem installed

Then I remove the old generated Cucumber files:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-merb$ merb-gen cucumber --session-type webrat -d
Loading init file from /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/init.rb
Loading /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/environments/development.rb
Generating with cucumber generator:
   [DELETED]  features/support/env.rb
   [DELETED]  lib/tasks/cucumber.rake
   [DELETED]  autotest/cucumber_merb_rspec.rb
   [DELETED]  features/steps/result_steps.rb
   [DELETED]  features/authentication/login.feature
   [DELETED]  features/authentication/steps/login_steps.rb
   [DELETED]  features/steps/webrat_steps.rb
   [DELETED]  bin/cucumber
   [DELETED]  cucumber.yml

And re-generate:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-merb$ merb-gen cucumber --session-type webrat
Loading init file from /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/init.rb
Loading /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/environments/development.rb
Generating with cucumber generator:
     [ADDED]  features/support/env.rb
     [ADDED]  lib/tasks/cucumber.rake
     [ADDED]  autotest/cucumber_merb_rspec.rb
     [ADDED]  features/steps/result_steps.rb
     [ADDED]  features/authentication/login.feature
     [ADDED]  features/authentication/steps/login_steps.rb
     [ADDED]  features/steps/webrat_steps.rb
     [ADDED]  bin/cucumber
     [ADDED]  cucumber.yml

I am not using merb-auth, so I delete the generated authentication example:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-merb$ rm -rf features/authentication/

Next up, I add my Before and After CouchDB hooks (see discussion from the other night as to the why). To do this, append to features/support/env.rb the following:

require 'rest_client'
Before do
  uri = "http://127.0.0.1:5984#{repository(:default).adapter.uri.path}"
  RestClient.put uri, { }
end

After do
  uri = "http://127.0.0.1:5984#{repository(:default).adapter.uri.path}"
  RestClient.delete uri
end

Remove the db:automigrate dependency from lib/tasks/cucumber.rake by commenting it out on line 16:

dependencies = ['merb_cucumber:test_env'] #, 'db:automigrate']

Finally, define features/browse_meal.feature:

Feature: See a meal

  So that I can see an old meal
  As a web user
  I want to browse a single meal by permalink
  Scenario: View Meal
    Given a "Breakfast Elves" meal
    When I view the meal permalink
    Then the title should include "Breakfast Elves"

And the steps in features/steps/browse_meals.rb (using response_body instead of response):

Given /^a "(.+)" meal$/ do |title|
  @permalink = title.gsub(/\W/, '-')

  Meal.create(:id    => @permalink,
              :title => title)
end

When /^I view the meal permalink$/ do
  visit("/meals/show/#{@permalink}.html")
end

Then /^the title should include "(.+)"$/ do |title|
  response_body.should have_selector("h1", :content => title)
end

Running rake features now gives us our desired results:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-merb$ rake features
(in /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb)
Loading init file from /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/init.rb
Loading /home/cstrom/repos/eee-merb/config/environments/development.rb
Feature: See a meal  # features/browse_meals.feature

  So that I can see an old meal
  As a web user
  I want to browse a single meal by permalink
  Scenario: View Meal                                # features/browse_meals.feature:6
    Given a "Breakfast Elves" meal                   # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:1
    When I view the meal permalink                   # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:8
    Then the title should include "Breakfast Elves"  # features/steps/browse_meals.rb:12


1 scenario
3 steps passed


Finished in 0.002594 seconds

0 examples, 0 failures

Shutting Down the Spike

I did try re-adding the cucumber task's dependency on db:automigrate back. Unfortunately, I still get the rake borted messages of Unknown property 'views' and couch logs to the effect of:

[Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:26:39 GMT] [info] [<0.592.0>] HTTP Error (code 404): {not_found,missing}
[Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:26:39 GMT] [info] [<0.592.0>] 127.0.0.1 - - "GET /eee-test/_design/Merb::DataMapperSessionStore" 404
[Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:26:39 GMT] [info] [<0.593.0>] HTTP Error (code 404): {not_found,missing}
[Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:26:39 GMT] [info] [<0.593.0>] 127.0.0.1 - - "GET /eee-test/_design/Meal" 404
[Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:26:39 GMT] [info] [<0.594.0>] 127.0.0.1 - - "PUT /eee-test/_design/Meal" 201

I am unsure if the problem is caused by the attempt at accessing the Merb::DataMapperSessionStore or the initial Meal attempt.

No matter—I have it working well enough that I could make a go at outside-in development of my chain on Merb. So the question is: Sinatra or Merb?