How to check if text appears on page in rails functional test?

Question

I am currently writing functional tests for my controller, and I want to check if a line

This is a test line

appears on my page.

I tried using

assert_select "p" do
  assert_select "this is the test line"
end

but i think something is wrong with this line.

What is the best way to do this in rails version 3?

Storekeeper

Please do not keep updating the code in your question -- it makes the Q&A format fall apart. – Einsteinium

Answer 1

I think you're just looking for:

assert_select "p", "this is the test line"

See the docs for more info about assert_select.

Note that the line above depends on the text being wrapped in a <p> tag, and being a literal match. If it's in another tag, you'll need to specify the correct selector. If you'd like to match on a Regex, that is also supported, via:

assert_select "p", /test line/

Note that this will not be very performant, as it will scan through all <p>'s in your document. Consider a more tightly specified selector, like a class or ID on the element you're targeting.

Einsteinium

I think my problem is that this p is inside a bunch of divs, for example <div><div><div><p> this is a test line</p></div></div></div>. Does this mean i have to specify that in the tag? Like div.div.div.p? – Storekeeper

So i found the answer, i added a class to the p and in assert_select did p.class and then "string" worked like a charm. – Storekeeper

Answer 2

Without specifying a tag:

assert_match "this is the test line", response.body

Manlove

Answer 3

this works with rails 6:

assert_selector "p", text: "this is the test line"

doc: https://www.rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/Capybara/Node/Matchers

(I was getting Unused parameters passed to Capybara::Queries::SelectorQuery)

Choral