Test Driven Ajax (on Rails)

Simulate Ajax Posts with select_form

We need a system that tests our new FORM by linking it to its action and that moves the test case closer to doing what a real web browser would do. Erase that test and start again:

  def test_update_yaml_node
    yaml_to_xhtml(get_omap)

    xhr :get,
        :edit_node,
        :page_name => 'WikiTestPage',
        :ypath     => 'node:test_uncle_wiggily:script'

#    puts @response.body
    form = select_form('/wiki/update_yaml_node')
    spike = 'new contents'
    form['node_contents'] = spike
    ypath = '//test_uncle_wiggily//script'
    assert_equal ypath, form['ypath'].value
    assert_equal @yar.page_name, form['page_name'].value
#    form.submit_without_clicking_button
#    yaml = YAML.parse_file(@yar.yaml_path)
#    assert_equal spike, yaml.select(ypath)[0].value
  end

That will soon be a much better test. It starts by using xhr :get to fetch out the FORM (the one that will soon edit one YAML node in our Wiki). The secret @response.body variable contains our FORM's HTML source. For the helplessly curious, it looks like this (reformatted):

  <form action = '/wiki/update_yaml_node'
            id = 'edit_node_form'
          name = 'edit_node_form'>
    <textarea name = 'node_contents'
         onkeydown = 'editor_keydown(event);'
              cols = '60'
              rows =  '3'
      >something tests uncle wiggily</textarea>
  </form>

As we suspected, that FORM has no hidden page_name or ypath variable. The server will not be able to identify the target file or node. We saw that coming; we knew it all along.

That's why the test case now uses select_form. It's also why we commented-out ...