Datatype not being passed in correctly for Rails 3.1 web service

Question

I have a Rails RESTful web service application that accepts a value from a client to increment the value in the database. The database value is an integer, but when using rspec to test the code, the value being passed in is interpreted as a string.

I'm using Rails 3.1 and Ruby 1.9.2.

Here's the rspec snippet:

...
it "should find Points and return object" do
  put :update, :username => "tester", :newpoints => [10, 15, 0], :format => :xml
end
...

Here's the controller code:

...
respond_to do |format|
  if points.update_attributes([xp + :newpoints[0]][sp + :newpoints[1]][cash +        :newpoints[2]])
    format.json { head :ok }
    format.xml { head :ok }
...

xp, sp and cash are values from the database and have been validated as Fixnum datatype. The error I am getting is:

TypeError: String can't be coerced into Fixnum

How do I write my test to ensure that the parameters being passed are passed as the proper datatype?

I can include more of the code if needed. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It took me a bit of head banging, but I found out that I was passing everything in wrong. The solution I've come up with is definitely not the best solution and could probably be re-written, but it works and for now, that's sufficient.

The change to the rspec snippet was to create hash represented by symbol :newpoints

it "should find Points and return object" do
  put :update, :username => "tester", :newpoints => {"experience_points" => 10, "shame_points" => 15, "gold" => 0}, :format => :xml
end

The handling of this request in the controller required a bit of tweaking, but here's the pertinent pieces:

class PointsController < ApplicationController
  #before_filter :authenticate, :only => :update
  before_filter :must_specify_user
  before_filter :fix_params
  before_filter :clean_up
  respond_to :html, :xml, :json

  def fix_params
    if params[:points]
      params[:points][:user_id] = @user.id if @user
    end
  end

 def clean_up
   @newpoints = params[:newpoints]
   @experience = @newpoints["experience_points"]
   @shame = @newpoints["shame_points"]
   @gold = @newpoints["gold"]
   @xp = @experience.to_i
   @sp = @shame.to_i
   @cash = @gold.to_i
end

def update
  points = Points.find_by_user_id(@user.id, params[:id])
  xp = points.experience_points
  sp = points.shame_points
  cash = points.gold
  final_experience = xp += @xp
  final_shame = sp += @sp
  final_gold = cash += @cash
  final_points = {:experience_points => final_experience, :shame_points => final_shame, :gold => final_gold}
  if_found points do
    respond_to do |format|
      if points.update_attributes!(params[final_points])
        format.json { head :ok }
        format.xml { head :ok }
      else
        format.json { render :nothing => true, :status => "401 Not Authorized"}
        format.xml { render :nothing => true, :status => "401 Not Authorized"}
      end
    end
  end
end
end

Obviously, much can be done to make this follow DRY and what not, so any suggestions are still welcome. Thanks in advance!