Error: undefined method for nil:NilClass

rubyonrails-talk
1

When I test functionals, I get the following error:

<pre><code>test_should_display_index(AlertsControllerTest): ActionView::TemplateError: undefined method `name' for nil:NilClass     On line #9 of app/views/alerts/index.html.erb

        6:         7: &lt;tr class=&quot;&lt;%= row_class %&gt;&quot;&gt;         8: &lt;td scope=&quot;row&quot; class=&quot;first odd&quot;&gt;&lt;%=h alert.title %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;         9: &lt;td class=&quot;even&quot;&gt;&lt;%=h alert.file_status.name %&gt;&lt;/td&gt;         10: &lt;td class=&quot;last odd&quot;&gt;&lt;%= render :partial =&gt; &quot;shared/action_links&quot;, :locals =&gt; { :obj =&gt; alert, :type =&gt; &quot;alert&quot; } %&gt;         11: &lt;/td&gt;         12: &lt;/tr&gt; </code></pre>

This test should confirm the proper display of the index for class Alerts. Alerts belong to class FileStatuses. Each file_status contains two objects: :id and :name.

<code>&lt;%=h alert.file_status.name %&gt;</code> produces the expected result when viewed in a browser (either `draft`, `published` or `trash` depending on the individual alert&#039;s setting). So it seems that the only thing finding this error is the test.

The test is pretty straight forward.&nbsp; Its code is:

<pre><code>class AlertsControllerTest &lt; ActionController::TestCase

  test &quot;should display index&quot; do     get :index     assert_response :success     assert_template &#039;index&#039;     assert_not_nil assigns(@alert)   end end</code></pre>

So what am I doing wrong?

2

and of course, the source code is not escaped...

3

OK, I figured it out. I just needed to populate my fixtures (in /tests/fixtures/). There is a good videocast addressing how to represent these relationships here: