Rspec and Devise 4.2: ArgumentError in model test that used to work

Question

Rails 5 is now out and I am upgrading my basic login/CRUD app to use the new framework, which involved updating Devise to 4.2 as well. Things were pretty straightforward, except for one rspec test that is failing. I tried stepping through the code with pry , but finding the problem was beyond me. Any pointers would be appreciated.

This is the error:

Failures:

1) User email rejects email addresses with improper format
   Failure/Error: expect(user).not_to be_valid

 ArgumentError:
   wrong number of arguments (given 0, expected 1)
 # ./spec/models/problem_test_user_spec.rb:13:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'
 # ./spec/models/problem_test_user_spec.rb:11:in `each'
 # ./spec/models/problem_test_user_spec.rb:11:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Here is the pared-down test:

 1  require 'rails_helper'
 2  require 'devise'
 3  
 4  RSpec.describe User, type: :model do
 5    let (:user) { FactoryGirl.create :user }
 6  
 7    describe "email" do
 8      it "rejects email addresses with improper format" do
 9        invalid_addresses = %w[ user@example,com user_at_foo.org user.name@example. ]
10  
11        invalid_addresses.each do |addr|
12          user.email = addr
13          expect(user).not_to be_valid
14        end
15      end
16    end
17  end

And here is my model:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  devise :database_authenticatable, :validatable

  validates :email, length: { maximum: 254 } # max length per RFC 3696, errata ID 1690
end

Here is my factory:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :user do
    name      { Faker::Name.name }
    tone_name { "#{Faker::Company.name} Tone" }
    email     { Faker::Internet.email }
    password              SOME_PASSWORD
    password_confirmation SOME_PASSWORD
    admin      false
  end
end

One postscript: the app runs fine in my development environment, but it will allow an invalid password of the form name@example,com where the rails 4.2 version passes the rspec test and catches this invalid password with an error.

Another clue: I learned that Devise changed the default email_regexp to a less strict expression in v4.1. My test is actually failing because an email address that used to be identified as illegal now is accepted. The ArgumentError is not in my code. I believe it is an error either in Devise or in Rspec. If I put a binding.pry in my test, then a simple #inspect on my model causes the following:

    12:       invalid_addresses.each do |addr|
    13:         user.email = addr
    14:         binding.pry
 => 15:         expect(user).not_to be_valid
    16:       end
    17:     end
    18:   end
    19: end

[1] pry(#<RSpec::ExampleGroups::User::Email>)> user.inspect
ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (given 0, expected 1)
from /Users/tarsa/.rbenv/versions/2.3.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/devise-4.2.0/lib/devise/models/database_authenticatable.rb:146:in `password_digest'

The Devise code does not look to be at fault, I suspect some interaction with ActiveRecord is going on, but I am at the limit of my debugging skills at this point.

I can workaround the problem by configuring Devise to use the 4.0.3 version of email_regexp . If all the password strings are recognized as invalid, then the bug, wherever it is, does not get tickled.

Answer 1

The problem was not a Rails 5 issue, but turned out to be from my continued use of password_digest in my model, which was originally validated with ActiveRecord. When I switched to Devise, I left this attribute in the table. As of Devise 4.2.0, the mechanism by which validation is done was changed to use serializable_hash and that is trying to call the vestigal password_digest attribute as a method, causing the error.

Removing the field eliminated the problem and the test failed with the proper message.

Thanks to the folks at Devise for the insight into this.