Testing w/ Analytical Gem and RSpec

We use the Analytical gem to include various thirdparty Javascript in our Rails application. Our test environment was configured with dummy values in config/analytical.yml.

production:
  google:
    key: <%= ENV['GOOGLE_UA'] %>
  kiss_metrics:
    js_url_key: <%= ENV['KISS_METRICS_URL_KEY'] %>
test:
  google:
    key: 'UA-12345'
  kiss_metrics:
    js_url_key: 12345
development:

We wrote a few simple tests to make sure the analytical code is being included properly. For example, we can check whether Google Analytics is included on the splash page.

context "google analytics" do
  it "should appear on the splash page" do
    visit "/"
    within :css, "script[type='text/javascript']:contains('.google-analytics.com/')" do
      page.should have_content("UA-12345")
    end
  end
end

Or, more complicated, test whether a user ID is sent to Kissmetrics.

context "kiss-metrics analytics" do
  it "should appear on the splash page" do
    visit "/"
    within :css, "script[type='text/javascript']:contains('kissmetrics.com/')" do
      page.should have_content("12345")
    end
  end
  context "logged-in user" do
    before(:each) do
      login_as @user
      visit "/"
    end
    it "should appear on the search page" do
      within :css, "script[type='text/javascript']:contains('kissmetrics.com/')" do
        page.should have_content("12345")
      end
    end
    it "should include user id" do
      within :css, "script[type='text/javascript']:contains(\"identify\")" do
        page.should have_content("[\"identify\", \"#{@user.id}\"]);")
      end
    end
  end
end

The drawback of this approach is that the Analytical code is included with every other test that doesn’t need it. With every Capybara test that runs in a browser, this hits DNS, then makes an HTTP request to Google and Kissmetrics. We cannot stub that with VCR or another gem because we’re using a real browser. But we can selectively enable Analytics without a configuration file by emptying the :test block in _config/analytical.yml _by configuring it before any test that needs it.

before :each do
    @analytical_options = ApplicationController.analytical_options.dup
    ApplicationController.analytical_options = @analytical_options.merge({
        :modules => [:google, :kiss_metrics],
        :google => { :key => "UA-12345" },
        :kiss_metrics => { :js_url_key => 12345 }
    })
end

after :each do
    ApplicationController.analytical_options = @analytical_options
end

It helps to be open-source. Looking at the internals of Analytical, its options are processed inside each controller on load, then merged with request options on every request before anything is rendered. The code above updates the configuration between those two steps. Note that since we’re modifying a static we have to make sure to cleanup after ourselves.

Daniel Doubrovkine

Testing w/ Analytical Gem and RSpec rails | ruby | testing

Testing w/ Analytical Gem and RSpec