Prefer request specs over controller specs

Request specs are preferred over Controller specs.

Rspec’s 3.5 release notes https://rspec.info/blog/2016/07/rspec-3-5-has-been-released/

The official recommendation of the Rails team and the RSpec core team is to write request specs instead. Request specs allow you to focus on a single controller action, but unlike controller tests involve the router, the middleware stack, and both rack requests and responses. This adds realism to the test that you are writing, and helps avoid many of the issues that are common in controller specs.

👎 Controller specs 🔗

Test a single HTTP request in each example.
Only one controller acton is tested, the views are not loaded by default.
Coupled with controller implementation. When refactoring you can have the external behavior of the application unchanged, but controller spec can fail.

👍 Request specs 🔗

Can test multiple HTTP requests in each example.
Tests full request response cycle, including routing, controllers, and views. Request spec behaviour is closer to the execution in production environment than controller spec.
Less coupled with controller behaviour.

🏎️ Speed 🔗

Comparing the run times of a controller and request spec showed that the request spec is 20% faster than the controller spec.

Controller spec 🔗

RSpec.describe Billing::CheckoutController do
  it "redirects to stripe checkout session url", :mock_stripe do
    user = create(:social_user)
    log_in_as user
    bootcamp_price_id = stripe_helper.create_price(id: "bootcamp_test_id").id
    subscription_price_id = stripe_helper.create_price(id: Billing::Plan.pro_annual.id).id

    purchase_bundle = create(:purchase_bundle, price_ids: [bootcamp_price_id, subscription_price_id])

    get :show, params: { id: purchase_bundle.slug }

    expect(response).to redirect_to("https://checkout.stripe.com/pay/test_cs_3")
  end
end

Request spec 🔗

RSpec.describe "Billing Checkout", type: :request do
  it "redirects to stripe checkout session url", :mock_stripe do
    user = create(:social_user)
    log_in_as user
    bootcamp_price_id = stripe_helper.create_price(id: "bootcamp_test_id").id
    subscription_price_id = stripe_helper.create_price(id: Billing::Plan.pro_annual.id).id

    purchase_bundle = create(:purchase_bundle, price_ids: [bootcamp_price_id, subscription_price_id])

    get billing_checkout_path(id: purchase_bundle.slug)

    expect(response).to redirect_to("https://checkout.stripe.com/pay/test_cs_3")
  end
end