This gem brings back assigns to your controller tests as well as assert_template to both controller and integration tests.

Note: This gem is only useful once assigns and assert_template have been removed from Rails.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'rails-controller-testing'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install rails-controller-testing

See rspec/rspec-rails#1393.

rspec-rails automatically integrates with this gem since version 3.5.0. Adding the gem to your Gemfile is sufficient.

If you use an older version of rspec-rails, you can manually include the modules in your rails_helper.

RSpec.configure do |config|
  [:controller, :view, :request].each do |type|
    config.include ::Rails::Controller::Testing::TestProcess, :type => type
    config.include ::Rails::Controller::Testing::TemplateAssertions, :type => type
    config.include ::Rails::Controller::Testing::Integration, :type => type
  end
end

For projects and gems using controller tests outside of a Rails application, invoke the Rails::Controller::Testing.install method inside your test suite setup to include the required modules on controller test cases.

# test/test_helper.rb

require 'rails-controller-testing'
Rails::Controller::Testing.install

assigns allows you to access the instance variables that have been passed to your views.

class PostsController < ActionController::Base
  def index
    @posts = Post.all
  end
end

class PostControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  def test_index
    get :index
    assert_equal Post.all, assigns(:posts)
  end
end

assert_template allows to you assert that certain templates have been rendered.

class PostControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  def test_index
    get :index
    assert_template 'posts/index'
  end
end

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request