Testing dynamic attributes with cucumber, undefined method - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

We have a Style model with dynamic attributes, which can be saved by filling one field with the attribute key and the next field with the value.
A typical params hash looks like this:
{"utf8"=>"✓", "style"=>{"collection_id"=>"48", "program_id"=>"989", "number"=>"454632", "name"=>"t67f", "category_id"=>"19", "field_KEY"=>"VALUE"}, "commit"=>"save", "id"=>"4521"}
This works as intended when clicking it through, and the "field_KEY" => "VALUE" pair creates a new dynamic attribute with a getter(field_KEY) and setter(field_KEY=) method.
The Problem is: If the process is simulated with cucumber, something calls the getters for all keys in the hash before the attributes are set, including field_KEY.
Normal attributes will return nil for a new record, but since the getter for field_KEY has not yet been created, this results in an
`UndefinedMethodError: undefined method 'field_KEY'`.
Now my question: would you rather track down the caller of the field_KEY getter and mess around with cucumber, or should I try to simulate a fake method, something like:
def check_method(method_name)
if method_name =~ /^field_/
nil
else
... # let the Error be raised
end
Better ideas or solutions are more than welcome
Thanks

Answer 1

The Problem was:
The call to field_KEY came from pickle, because I included the step
And the style's "field_KEY" should be "VALUE"
which looks like this:
Then(/^#{capture_model}'s (\w+) (should(?: not)?) be #{capture_value}$/) do |name, attribute, expectation, expected|
actual_value = model(name).send(attribute)
expectation = expectation.gsub(' ', '_')
case expected
when 'nil', 'true', 'false'
actual_value.send(expectation, send("be_#{expected}"))
when /^[+-]?[0-9_]+(\.\d+)?$/
actual_value.send(expectation, eql(expected.to_f))
else
actual_value.to_s.send(expectation, eql(eval(expected)))
end
end
I still don't know why the dynamic_attribute getter had not been created up to this point.
What I ended up doing:
In my opinion (also, it solved the problem ;)), cucumber tests should be black-box tests, thats why I chose to change the steps and now I use
And the "key1" field should contain "KEY"
which checks if the field has been filled with the correct value after the page reloads.