Rspec: the proper way to use params in a get method

Question

This is my RSpec test:

describe "GET #show" do
  it "assigns the requested user to @user" do
    user = FactoryGirl.build(:user)
   get :show, id: user
    assigns(:user).should eq(user)
  end
end

This is my rails controller:

  def show
    @user = User.find(params[:id])

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # show.html.erb
      format.json { render json: @user }
    end
  end

I get the following error message:

Failures:

  1) UsersController GET #show assigns the requested user to @user
     Failure/Error: get :show, id: user
     ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound:
       Couldn't find User without an ID
     # /home/tim/fairym/app/controllers/users_controller.rb:25:in `show'
     # ./users_controller_spec.rb:21:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

What is the proper way to use the get method here in order to make the test pass?

Answer 1

You should use FactoryGirl.create and not build. The reason is that create actually makes an entry in the database, including ID. build only makes an object in the memory, without an ID.