rack_session_access

RackSessionAccess provides rack middleware for 'rack.session' environment management.

Problem

Acceptance testing assumes that you can't directly access application session. For example if you use capybara with selenium webdriver you can't change some session value because your test use browser that access application via backend server.

Solution

But if you still want to change session values? Possible solution is inject into application some code that will manage session. If you use rack based framework this gem does it!

Installation

gem install rack_session_access

Using with Rails3

Add to Gemfile:

gem 'rack_session_access'

Add RackSessionAccess middleware to rails middleware stack. Add the following inconfig/environments/test.rb:

[MyRailsApp]::Application.configure do
  ...
  # Access to rack session
  config.middleware.use RackSessionAccess::Middleware
  ...
end

Note Ensure you include rack_session_access middleware only for test environment otherwise you will have security issue.

Using with Sinatra

Add to your sinatra application:

class MySinatraApplication < Sinatra::Base
  enable :sessions
  use RackSessionAccess if environment == :test
  ...
end

If you use rspec you may prefer to inject middleware only for rspec tests: Put into spec/spec_helper:

  MySinatraApplication.configure do
    use RackSessionAccess::Middleware
  end

Using with Rack builder

Rack::Builder.new do
  ...
  use Rack::Session::Cookie
  use RackSessionAccess::Middleware
  use MyRackApplication
end.to_app

Testing with Capybara

Add to spec/spec_helper.rb

require "rack_session_access/capybara"

Use:

  • page.set_rack_session to set your desired session data
  • page.get_rack_session to obtain your application session data
  • page.get_rack_session_key to obtain certain key if your application session data

Example:

require 'spec_helper'

feature "My feature" do
  background do
    @user = Factory(:user, :email => '[email protected]')
  end

  scenario "logged in user access profile page" do
    page.set_rack_session(:user_id => user.id)
    page.visit "/profile"
    page.should have_content("Hi, [email protected]")
  end

  scenario "visit landing page" do
    page.visit "/landing?ref=123"
    page.get_rack_session_key('ref').should == "123"
  end
end

Authlogic integration

page.set_rack_session("user_credentials" => @user.persistence_token)

Devise integration

page.set_rack_session("warden.user.user.key" => User.serialize_into_session(@user).unshift("User"))

Notes

Thus we use marshalized data it's possible to set any ruby object into application session hash.

Enjoy!

Running rack_session_access tests

Against Rails3, Sinatra, rack applications

BUNDLE_GEMFILE=Gemfile bundle install
BUNDLE_GEMFILE=Gemfile bundle exec rspec -fs -c spec/

Against Rails4, Sinatra, rack applications

BUNDLE_GEMFILE=Gemfile.rails4 bundle install
BUNDLE_GEMFILE=Gemfile.rails4 bundle exec rspec -fs -c spec/

References