Adding a middleware to a controllers middleware stack causes problems with helper inclusion

[nateberkopec]

Given a blank rails app fresh from rails new, add two helper methods:

#app/helpers/application_helper.rb
module ApplicationHelper
  def hello
    "world"
  end
end

#app/helpers/foo_helper.rb
module FooHelper
  def foo
    "bar"
  end
end

Now, add a middleware to the ApplicationController in an environment's config file. For example:

#config/environments/development.rb
ApplicationController.middleware.use("::Rack::Auth::Basic", "Test") do |u, p|
  u == "user" && p == "secret"
end

FooHelper will no longer be included by default in ActionView::Base.

irb(main):001:0> helper.foo
NoMethodError: undefined method `foo' for #<ActionView::Base:0x00000109927778>

Present on 4.1 and 4.2, unsure of other versions. A blank app that reproduces this is here.

[sebjacobs]

You should be able to configure the middleware directly on config.

e.g

Rails.application.configure do
  config.middleware.use("::Rack::Auth::Basic", "Test") do |u, p|
    u == "user" && p == "secret"
  end
end

[nateberkopec]

@sebjacobs I could, but in this case, I actually only want to add it to ApplicationController.

[nateberkopec]

Add the middleware directly in application_controller.rb and all helpers are included as usual. This isn't super ideal for us - I like keeping environment specific code in config/environments. I may not be able to do this due to load order issues, and if thats the case, then this should be closed.

[rails-bot]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not been commented on for at least
three months.

The resources of the Rails team are limited, and so we are asking for your help.

If you can still reproduce this error on the 4-2-stable, 4-1-stable branches or on master,
please reply with all of the information you have about it in order to keep the issue open.

Thank you for all your contributions.

[rafaelfranca]

It happens because when you call ApplicationController in a initializer it load the ActionController before action_view helpers and hooked. Yeah, it is not possible to use this right now.