rails NoMethodError: undefined method “ ” for nil:NilClass

Question

I am working on rails tutorial by Michael Hartl's ( chapter 9 ).

I get this error:

 Error:
UsersLoginTest#test_login_with_remembering:
NoMethodError: undefined method `FILL_IN' for nil:NilClass
    test/integration/users_login_test.rb:42:in `block in <class:UsersLoginTest>'

FILL-IN was added in chapter 8 and there wasn't any problem till chapter 9. I tried a lot but I can't fix it. Here is my UsersLoginTest class.

class UsersLoginTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest

  def setup
    @user = users(:michael)
  end

  test "login with invalid information" do
    get login_path
    assert_template 'sessions/new'
    post login_path, session: { email: "", password: "" }
    assert_template 'sessions/new'
    assert_not flash.empty?
    get root_path
    assert flash.empty?
  end

  test "login with valid information followed by logout" do
       get login_path
    post login_path, session: { email: @user.email, password: 'password' }
    assert is_logged_in?
    assert_redirected_to @user
    follow_redirect!
    assert_template 'users/show'
    assert_select "a[href=?]", login_path, count: 0
    assert_select "a[href=?]", logout_path
    assert_select "a[href=?]", user_path(@user)
    delete logout_path
    assert_not is_logged_in?
    assert_redirected_to root_url
    # Simulate a user clicking logout in a second window.
    delete logout_path
    follow_redirect!
    assert_select "a[href=?]", login_path
    assert_select "a[href=?]", logout_path,      count: 0
    assert_select "a[href=?]", user_path(@user), count: 0
  end

  test "login with remembering" do
    log_in_as(@user, remember_me: '1')
    assert_equal assigns(:user).FILL_IN, FILL_IN
  end

  test "login without remembering" do
    log_in_as(@user, remember_me: '0')
    assert_nil cookies['remember_token']
  end
end

Line 42 is:

assert_equal assigns(:user).FILL_IN,FILL_IN

Answer 1

You need to use an @user instance variable in listing 9.29 if you did the "login with remembering exercise" in listing 8.62. It took me a while to realize this, so it might help other beginners to see what Shadwell's suggestions look like in the code:

sessions_controller.rb

class SessionsController < ApplicationController
  # ...

  def create
    @user = User.find_by(email: params[:session][:email].downcase)
    if @user && @user.authenticate(params[:session][:password])
      log_in @user
      params[:session][:remember_me] == '1' ? remember(@user) : forget(@user)
      redirect_back_or @user
    else
      flash.now[:danger] = 'Invalid email/password combination' # Flash.now designed for rendered pages, disappears at the next request.
      render 'new'
    end
  end

  # ...
end

users_login_test.rb

# ...

 test "login with remembering" do
    log_in_as(@user, remember_me: '1')
    assert_equal assigns(:user).remember_token, cookies['remember_token']
  end

# ...

To be fair, Michael Hartl advises us to solve the exercises in separate topic branches with git.

Answer 2

The errors shows that assigns(:user) is returning nil.

assigns tests for an instance variable set in your controller. The expectation here is that you have a value set for @user in your controller and that when the method FILL_IN is called on it that it will equal FILL_IN . Once you've fixed the problem of @user being nil you'll need to actually fill in those placeholders.

Answer 3

FILL_IN in this case is a placeholder. Michael expects you to replace this with the correct text.