json - How to send raw post data in a Rails functional test?

Question

I'm looking to send raw post data (e.g. unparamaterized JSON) to one of my controllers for testing:

class LegacyOrderUpdateControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  test "sending json" do
    post :index, '{"foo":"bar", "bool":true}'
  end
end

but this gives me a NoMethodError: undefined method `symbolize_keys' for #<String:0x00000102cb6080> error.

What is the correct way to send raw post data in ActionController::TestCase?

Here is some controller code:

def index
  post_data = request.body.read
  req = JSON.parse(post_data)
end

Answer 1

I ran across the same issue today and found a solution.

In your test_helper.rb define the following method inside of ActiveSupport::TestCase:

def raw_post(action, params, body)
  @request.env['RAW_POST_DATA'] = body
  response = post(action, params)
  @request.env.delete('RAW_POST_DATA')
  response
end

In your functional test, use it just like the post method but pass the raw post body as the third argument.

class LegacyOrderUpdateControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
  test "sending json" do
    raw_post :index, {}, {:foo => "bar", :bool => true}.to_json
  end
end

I tested this on Rails 2.3.4 when reading the raw post body using

request.raw_post

instead of

request.body.read

If you look at the source code you'll see that raw_post just wraps request.body.read with a check for this RAW_POST_DATA in the request env hash.