why controller var isn't available within a test? - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I'm trying to follow Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial in http://ruby.railstutorial.org/chapters/sign-in-sign-out, but with some changes to practice, above all, some variations and the Test::Unit framework. In the tutorial, RSpec is used, while I'm trying to stick to Test::Unit + Shoulda-context.
In chapter 9 I'm suposed to pass some functional tests that use a var called 'controller', but my tests don't work as they find out that 'controller' doesn't exist. This is what I get:
marcel#pua:~/Desenvolupament/Rails3Examples/ror_tutorial$ rake
test:recent Loaded suite
/home/marcel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader
Started F
=============================================================================== Failure: test: POST 'create' with valid signin (email and password)
should redirect to the user show page. (SessionsControllerTest)
[test/functional/sessions_controller_test.rb:58]: Expected at least 1
element matching "title", found 0. is not true.
=============================================================================== E
=============================================================================== Error: test: POST 'create' with valid signin (email and password)
should sign in the user. (SessionsControllerTest): NameError:
undefined local variable or method `controller' for
test/functional/sessions_controller_test.rb:53:in `block (3 levels) in <class:SessionsControllerTest>'
=============================================================================== Finished in 0.957865676 seconds. 7 tests, 6 assertions, 1 failures, 1
errors, 0 pendings, 0 omissions, 0 notifications 0% passed
7.31 tests/s, 6.26 assertions/s rake aborted! Command failed with status (1): [/home/marcel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/b...] Tasks: TOP
=> test:recent (See full trace by running task with --trace)
This is the original (RSpec) test:
describe SessionsController do
...
describe "POST 'create'" do
...
describe "with valid email and password" do
before(:each) do
#user = Factory(:user)
#attr = { :email => #user.email, :password => #user.password }
end
it "should sign the user in" do
post :create, :session => #attr
controller.current_user.should == #user
controller.should be_signed_in
end
it "should redirect to the user show page" do
post :create, :session => #attr
response.should redirect_to(user_path(#user))
end
end
end
end
and this is my translated (into Test::Unit + Sholuda-context) test:
class SessionsControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
context "POST 'create'" do
context "with valid signin (email and password)" do
setup do
#attr = {email: "test#email.tst", password: "testpwd"}
#user=User.create! #attr.merge!({name: "test_user", password_confirmation: "testpwd"})
end
should "sign in the user" do
post :create, :session => #attr
assert_equal #user, controller.current_user
end
should "redirect to the user show page" do
post :create, :session => #attr
assert_select "title", /Show/
end
end
end
end
Has anybody any idea how to make my test work?

Answer 1

Looking at the official Rails testing guide at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/testing.html, I've seen that an instance variable called #controller is enabled in functional tests. so, the Test::Unit version should be:
should "sign in the user" do
post :create, :session => #attr
assert_equal #user, #controller.current_user
end