Rspec and HTTP_AUTHORIZATION

gistfile1.txt

# I'm trying to add HTTP BasicAuth to an existing Rails API (not app - no pages or views).
#
# At http://blog.matthodan.com/how-to-test-something-with-rspec
# (and a thousand or so other places)
# I find that it's easy to test this:

describe SourcesController do
  describe "#index" do
    before :each do
      @request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] 
        = "Basic #{ActiveSupport::Base64::encode64('user:secret')}"
    end

    it "should have this action" do
  …

# Which sounds just swell, guys, but I get


     Failure/Error: @request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = "Basic #{ActiveSupport::Base64::encode64('user:secret')}"
     NoMethodError:
       undefined method `env' for nil:NilClass
     # ./spec/integration/xxxx/subscriptions_spec.rb:14:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

# so, apparently @request is nil. I tried "request" as well, same result.
# perhaps there's been some massive reorganization of the RSPEC test case classes?
# pp self.class.ancestors, as of the line before the unhappy nil, is

[RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_6::Nested_1,
 RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_6]

No, ENV didn't do it for me. Here's what did:

In spec/controllers/resource.rb:
require 'integration'
describe ResourceController do
include BasicAuthHelper
before do
http_login(organization, user, pw)
end
…
end

in spec/support/integration.rb:
module BasicAuthHelper
def http_login(organization, user, pw)
request.env['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(user,pw)
end
end

That is, inventing a top-level module BasicAuthHelper, in order to get the namespaces right, seemed to be the trick.