should_set_the_flash better

should_set_the_flash_to doesn't do quite what I'd like. I want to: a) specify which level of flash should be set (ie make sure it's a notice and not an error) and b) not care exactly what notice has been set.

IMO tying your tests down too hard to ephemeral strings is annoying... what is somebody changed the wording from "user created" to "thanks for signing up"? You have to change your test cases for that? :P So, being able to just enter "anything" should be possible.

Note - it piggybacks on the existing flash shoulda macro, and thus allows you to use it as before (pass 'nil' for level if you want - but it's better just to use the original if you need it.

So, here's my updated code. Dump it into the bottom of your test_helper file.

class ActionController::TestCase
  # Make sure that a message has been set at the given flash level
  # you can test that a notice has been posted, but no error thus:
  # should_set_flash :notice
  # should_not_set_flash :error
  def self.should_set_the_flash(level = nil, val = :any)
    val = /.*/i if val == :any
    return should_set_the_flash_to val unless level
    if val.blank?
      should "have nothing in the #{level} flash" do
        assert flash[level].blank?, "but had: #{flash[level].inspect}"
      end
    else
      should "have something in the #{level} flash" do
        assert !flash[level].blank?, "No value set of given flash level: #{level}"
      end
      should "have #{val.inspect} in the #{level} flash" do
        assert_contains flash[level], val, ", Flash: #{flash[level].inspect}"
      end
    end
  end
  # convenience method for making sure nothing has been set for the given
  # flash level
  def self.should_not_set_the_flash(level = nil)
    should_set_the_flash level, nil
  end
end

[Edit: 22-Apr-2009] : ADDED a convenience method for "not_set" and updated "set" to take advantage of this. Also updated comments to include an example of use