What does assign do in rspec-rails?

Question

I am working on code that I haven't written and trying to understand how RSpec works.

let(:course) { create :new_course }
before { assign :course, course }

I know that let creates a memoized variable. What does assign do in this example?

Answer 1

You must be looking at a view spec. In an rspec-rails view spec, assign assigns its second argument to the template instance variable named by the first argument. In your example, assign :course, course sets @course in the template to the value of course.

More here: https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/v/3-3/docs/view-specs/view-spec