be_valid_asset

Provides be_valid_xhtml, be_valid_css and be_valid_feed matchers for rspec controller and view tests.

Installation

To use be_valid_asset in your project, install the gem:

gem install be_valid_asset

or as a plugin

./script/plugin install git://github.com/unboxed/be_valid_asset.git

Add the following to the spec/support/be_valid_asset.rb: (for older version of RSpec you'll need to require it from spec_helper.rb)

include BeValidAsset

# BeValidAsset::Configuration.display_invalid_content = true
BeValidAsset::Configuration.enable_caching = true
BeValidAsset::Configuration.cache_path = File.join(RAILS_ROOT, %w(tmp be_valid_asset_cache))

See below for details of the configuration options available

Usage

(X)HTML validation

It can be used to test either an ActionController Response object as follows:

describe FooController do
  integrate_views

  describe "GET 'index'" do
    it "should have valid markup" do
      get 'index'
      response.should be_valid_xhtml
    end
  end
end

or

describe "/index.html" do
  it "should be valid XHTML" do
    render 'home/index', :layout => true
    response.should be_valid_xhtml
  end
end

or to test a string:

it "should be valid xhtml" do
  html = File.read(File.join(RAILS_ROOT, %w(public index.html)))
  html.should be_valid_xhtml
end

It is also possible to validate an xhtml fragment. This assumes xhtml-1.0 strict.

it "should be valid xhtml" do
  string = "<p>This is an html fragment</p>"
  string.should be_valid_xhtml_fragment
end

CSS validation

CSS files can be validated as follows:

it "should be valid CSS" do
  css = File.read(File.join(RAILS_ROOT, %w(public stylesheets main.css)))
  css.should be_valid_css
end

be_valid_css takes an optional parameter specifying the css profile to test against. It defaults to testing against CSS 2.1. It can be set to any of the profiles supported by the CSS validator (e.g. css1, css2, css21, css3). There are also the following shortcut methods:

• be_valid_css1 => CSS 1.0
• be_valid_css2 => CSS 2.1
• be_valid_css3 => CSS 3.0

Feed validation

RSS and Atom feeds can be validated from a response, or a string, in the same way as for xhtml or CSS. e.g.

describe FooController do
  integrate_views

  describe "GET 'index.rss'" do
    it "should be valid" do
      get 'index.rss'
      response.should be_valid_feed
    end
  end
end

There are also aliased methods be_valid_rss and be_valid_atom that do the same thing.

Environment Variables

Disabling network tests

If the environment variable NONET is set to true, then all tests with no cached response available will be marked as pending.

http_proxy

If you need to use a proxy server to access the validator service, set the environment variable http_proxy.

Configuration

The following can be set in spec/support/be_valid_asset.rb:

Display Full source for failures:

BeValidAsset::Configuration.display_invalid_content = false (default)

Display surrounding source for failures:

This will cause it to output the failing line, and n surrounding lines (defaults to 5)

BeValidAsset::Configuration.display_invalid_lines = false (default)
BeValidAsset::Configuration.display_invalid_lines_count = 5 (default)

Change validator host/path:

BeValidAsset::Configuration.markup_validator_host = 'validator.w3.org'
BeValidAsset::Configuration.markup_validator_path = '/check'
BeValidAsset::Configuration.css_validator_host = 'jigsaw.w3.org'
BeValidAsset::Configuration.css_validator_path = '/css-validator/validator'
BeValidAsset::Configuration.feed_validator_host = 'validator.w3.org'
BeValidAsset::Configuration.feed_validator_path = '/feed/check.cgi'

If you are doing more than the occasional check, you should probably run your own copy of the validator, and use that. Instructions here: http://validator.w3.org/docs/install.html, http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/DOWNLOAD.html or http://validator.w3.org/feed/about.html#where

Caching

be_valid_asset can cache the responses from the validator to save look-ups for documents that haven't changed. To use this feature, it must be enabled, and a cache path must be set:

BeValidAsset::Configuration.enable_caching = true
BeValidAsset::Configuration.cache_path = File.join(RAILS_ROOT, %w(tmp be_valid_asset_cache))

Issues / Feature Requests

Please use the github issue tracker to track any bugs/feature requests.

Licensing etc.

This was originally based on a blog post here: http://www.anodyne.ca/2007/09/28/rspec-custom-matchers-and-be_valid_xhtml/

This is distributed under the MIT Licence, see MIT-LICENSE.txt for the details.