Testing 404/500, Error Pages with Webrat visit method

Cory O'Daniel — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:02:09 +0000

This is a super simple snippet, and maybe there is something built into webrat, but I didn't find it. I needed to test for 404 pages in some of my tests (I was writing tests that made sure a page didnt show for disabled content). Purposely getting 404's can be annoying though since webrat opens up the 404 page in your default browser. There is a variable available in Webrat's configuration that you can use to temporarily disable this functionality. I wrapped it in the following method:

  def visit_but_dont_open(url)
    Webrat.configuration.instance_variable_set("@open_error_files", false)
    visit url
    Webrat.configuration.instance_variable_set("@open_error_files", true)
  end

Throw that in your test_helper and you can start doing:

1 2	visit_but_dont_open "Http://example.com/page/that/doesnt/exist" assert !response.ok?

Yay, 404.

Cory O'Daniel - These are just words » testing

Testing 404/500, Error Pages with Webrat visit method