#276 Testing Time & Web Requests

Jul 25, 2011 | 8 minutes | Testing, Plugins

It can be difficult to test code that deals with the current time or an external web request. Here I show you how to do both using the Timecop and FakeWeb gems.

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Alternative Libraries

WebMock
VCR

          Gemfile
        
group :test do
  gem "timecop"
  gem "fakeweb"
end

          spec_helper.rb
        
FakeWeb.allow_net_connect = false

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.before(:each) do
    Timecop.return
    FakeWeb.clean_registry
  end
end

          user_spec.rb
        
it "saves the time the password reset was sent" do
  Timecop.freeze
  user.send_password_reset
  Time.use_zone("Paris") do
    user.reload.password_reset_sent_at.should eq(Time.zone.now)
  end
end

          web_request_spec.rb
        
it "fetches the content length" do
  FakeWeb.register_uri(:head, "http://example.com/", :content_length => 123)
  WebRequest.new(:url => "http://example.com/").content_length.should eq(123)
end

          models/web_request.rb
        
def content_length
  uri = URI.parse(url)
  response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port) { |http| http.request_head(uri.path) }
  response["content-length"].to_i
end

          config/application.rb
        
require 'net/http'