explicitly included helper methods not available (any more) with Rails 6.1

[robinboening]

What Ruby, Rails and RSpec versions are you using?

Ruby version: 2.7.1
Rails version: 6.1
RSpec-core version: 3.10.1
RSpec-rails version: 4.1.1

Observed behaviour

In a helper spec, when explicitly including methods as helper_method's into the current controller the methods are not available on the ActionView level.

Simplified example

# lib/configuration_methods.rb
module ConfigurationMethods
    extend ActiveSupport::Concern

    included do
      helper_method :bar
    end
end

# spec/helpers/foo_helper_spec.rb
before do
  helper.controller.class.include(ConfigurationMethods)
end

it 'foo bar' do
  expect(helper.bar).to eq("bar")
end

The example fails with

ActionView::Template::Error:
       undefined method `bar' for #<ActionView::Base:0x0000000000c0d0>

This is only a problem with Rails 6.1 as it doesn't fail with Rails 6.0.x.
I was able to track down what change in Rails is causing the issue

rails/rails@758ad13#diff-3149407bd2f6287e7791fc3e0cc5b2559d7e4e0c19eb1e7f7ea84e0db1e35ac5L33-R50

but I am not fully understanding the change nor do I know if rspec-rails needs to adapt to that change or if this change in rails is simply a bug.

Expected behaviour

bar should be available within ActionView; the example should succeed.

Can you provide an example app?

I will see if I can set up a demo app, if needed.

Let me know if I can provide more details.

Cheers
Robin

[benoittgt]

Hello @robinboening

Could you try with main branch. I don't think we fixed this behavior but I want to be sure before trying to look at it.

Cheers

[robinboening]

Thanks for the blazingly fast response, @benoittgt

I can confirm its failing using the current main branch.

I created a rails 6.1 app showing the failing example, using rspec-rails main branch from github: https://github.com/robinboening/rspec-issue-demo (the readme contains some info as well)

[benoittgt]

Thanks @robinboening for the perfect repro app. I played a little bit with the code and Rails. The PR from @jhawthorn is very interesting. I was not able to find a solution after 1h.

I am wondering if we should not call explicitly a method to defined them helper method? @jhawthorn any idea?

[robinboening]

Just pinging @jhawthorn again in case he missed it :)

[aergonaut]

I am also seeing this issue, but in a different context than what @robinboening reported. However, I think my issue is the same. In my case, I have a view spec that is testing a view which uses a helper method that is defined in the controller using helper_method. The view works correctly when I run the server, but when I run the view spec, I get a NameError.

This started appearing after upgrading to Rails 6.1 only.

I have created another repo to demonstrate the issue I am seeing: https://github.com/aergonaut/rspec-rails-helper-method-issue-demo

The demo.html.erb_spec.rb view spec fails on a NameError for the example_helper_method helper.

This method is defined in DemoController using helper_method.

When running the server, the helper method works as expected.

But in the view spec, the helper cannot be found. The output is this:

bundle exec rspec                                      
**F

Pending: (Failures listed here are expected and do not affect your suite's status)

  1) DemoHelper add some examples to (or delete) /Users/chris/src/coupa/rspec-rails-helper-method-issue-demo/spec/helpers/demo_helper_spec.rb
     # Not yet implemented
     # ./spec/helpers/demo_helper_spec.rb:14

  2) Demos GET /index add some examples (or delete) /Users/chris/src/coupa/rspec-rails-helper-method-issue-demo/spec/requests/demo_spec.rb
     # Not yet implemented
     # ./spec/requests/demo_spec.rb:5


Failures:

  1) demo/demo.html.erb demonstrates the issue
     Failure/Error: <h1><%= example_helper_method %></h1>
     
     ActionView::Template::Error:
       undefined local variable or method `example_helper_method' for #<ActionView::Base:0x00000000008160>
     # ./app/views/demo/demo.html.erb:1:in `_app_views_demo_demo_html_erb___545069705288937197_16540'
     # ./spec/views/demo/demo.html.erb_spec.rb:5:in `block (2 levels) in <main>'
     # ------------------
     # --- Caused by: ---
     # NameError:
     #   undefined local variable or method `example_helper_method' for #<ActionView::Base:0x00000000008160>
     #   ./app/views/demo/demo.html.erb:1:in `_app_views_demo_demo_html_erb___545069705288937197_16540'

Finished in 0.04022 seconds (files took 0.95446 seconds to load)
3 examples, 1 failure, 2 pending

Failed examples:

rspec ./spec/views/demo/demo.html.erb_spec.rb:4 # demo/demo.html.erb demonstrates the issue

[afdev82]

Hi 👋 ,
any news about this issue?
I don't know if I can help out in some way, since I'm new to this project

[benoittgt]

Hello

I am wondering if providing a reproducing template using https://github.com/rails/rails/tree/main/guides/bug_report_templates to see if the issue isn't on the rails side?

[benoittgt]

There is an interesting answer from John Hawthorn here rails/rails#40204 (comment)

And also this PR rails/rails#40125