Keep in mind that rspec-rails is a thin wrapper for Rails' own testing framework. What happens if you do the same thing in a Rails functional test?

require 'test_helper'

class OneControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  test "get index should be success" do
    get "index"
    assert_response :success
  end
end

I stumbled on the same problem just minutes ago. You were right David, it seems to be a rails issue. Here is the output of the unit test you proposed, just in case I missed something

ruby -I. functional/activities_controller_test.rb 2010-12-01 12:24:28
Loaded suite functional/activities_controller_test
Started
E
Finished in 0.138036 seconds.

1. Error:
   test_get_index_should_be_success(ActivitiesControllerTest):
   ActionController::RoutingError: No route matches {:controller=>"activities"}
   /home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib

/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:424:in `raise_routing_error'
/home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib

/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:406:in rescue in generate' /home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib /action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:395:ingenerate'
/home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:453:in generate' /home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:449:ingenerate_extras'
/home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:445:in extra_keys' /home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_controller/test_case.rb:136:inassign_parameters'
/home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_controller/test_case.rb:395:in process' /home/robert/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3/gems/actionpack-3.0.0/lib/action_controller/test_case.rb:343:inget'
functional/activities_controller_test.rb:5:in `block in class:ActivitiesControllerTest'

1 tests, 0 assertions, 0 failures, 1 errors, 0 skips

Test run options: --seed 52769

Here is the setup

Using rake (0.8.7)
Using abstract (1.0.0)
Using activesupport (3.0.0)
Using builder (2.1.2)
Using i18n (0.4.2)
Using activemodel (3.0.0)
Using erubis (2.6.6)
Using rack (1.2.1)
Using rack-mount (0.6.13)
Using rack-test (0.5.6)
Using tzinfo (0.3.23)
Using actionpack (3.0.0)
Using mime-types (1.16)
Using polyglot (0.3.1)
Using treetop (1.4.9)
Using mail (2.2.10)
Using actionmailer (3.0.0)
Using arel (1.0.1)
Using activerecord (3.0.0)
Using activeresource (3.0.0)
Using archive-tar-minitar (0.5.2)
Using bcrypt-ruby (2.1.2)
Using bundler (1.0.7)
Using celerity (0.8.4)
Using culerity (0.2.12)
Using nokogiri (1.4.4)
Using ffi (0.6.3)
Using childprocess (0.1.4)
Using json_pure (1.4.6)
Using rubyzip (0.9.4)
Using selenium-webdriver (0.1.1)
Using xpath (0.1.2)
Using capybara (0.4.0)
Using columnize (0.3.2)
Using warden (1.0.2)
Using devise (1.1.5)
Using diff-lcs (1.1.2)
Using hirb (0.3.5)
Using thor (0.14.6)
Using railties (3.0.0)
Using rails (3.0.0)
Using jquery-rails (0.2.5)
Using ruby_core_source (0.1.4)
Using linecache19 (0.5.11)
Using mysql2 (0.2.6)
Using nifty-generators (0.4.2)
Using rspec-core (2.2.1)
Using rspec-expectations (2.2.0)
Using rspec-mocks (2.2.0)
Using rspec (2.2.0)
Using rspec-rails (2.2.0)
Using ruby-debug-base19 (0.11.24)
Using ruby-debug19 (0.11.6)
Using shoulda (2.11.3)
Using wirble (0.1.3)

Please forgive, and forget, the mess above

This is more readable:

I stumbled on the same problem just minutes ago. You were right David, it seems to be a rails issue. Here is the output of the unit test you proposed, just in case I missed something

https://gist.github.com/723367

Please raise this issue in the rails tracker if it's not already there:

http://rails.lighthouseapp.com/

I am also able to duplicate the problem, I will bubble this up to rails after work(unless someone is really excited and does it before then).

David and Robert, thanks for your help!

redirect "thanks", :to => "David"

I just created the ticket.

https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/6097-testing-nested-routes

Just a taught though

get :index

cannot work on a nested route, are we aware of this?
What we want is that the automated tests do something like

get :index, <name_of_parent>_id => 42

right?

Cheers
Robert

Any resolution on this?

See https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/6097-testing-nested-routes