RackBox

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

This currently only works with RSpec.

NOTE: Although I really love the RackBox syntax (which was stolen from Merb's request spec), rack-test has gotten much more love than RackBox and I haven't had time to refactor RackBox.

I recommend using rack-test instead! RackBox will likely be ported to a rack-test extension that provides the syntax I enjoy.

Watch the 'Screencast'

$ 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.

$ 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

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

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

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.

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 which has body, headers, status methods (and more)

RackBox also comes with a rackbox script.

# prints usage ... this is all you really need  :)
$ rackbox

# prints out information about the app in the current directory (if found).
# this looks like a config.ru or a Rails environment
$ rackbox info

# prints out the response for a call to GET '/' on your application
$ rackbox request --method get /foo
$ rackbox get /foo
$ rackbox /foo

see RackBox's Lighthouse Tickets

• look at using Rack::Cookies as a cookie jar instead of doing it ourselves
• look at Rack::NestedParams and see if it can replace our own logic