Expecting change with RSpec #rails #testing #rspec

Usually when I try to test if a value has changed after a method has been called I will assert the initial value as one expectation followed by the action that changes it, and finally assert the value has changed.

For example this test will check if a user's bad login attempts are incremented when the user.record_bad_login! method is called:

describe '#record_bad_login!' do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }

  it 'increments the bad login attempts count' do
    expect(user.failed_login_attempts).to eq(0)
    user.record_bad_login!
    expect(user.failed_login_attempts).to eq(1)
  end
end

RSpec provides us with a more straight forward way to "oneline" this type of test while making it more declarative:

describe '#record_bad_login!' do
  let(:user) { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }

  it 'increments the bad login attempts count' do
    expect { user.record_bad_login! }.to change { user.failed_login_attempts }.from(0).to(1)
  end
end

Read more here: https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-expectations/v/2-0/docs/matchers/expect-change