Getting "ActiveRecord::UnknownAttributeError: unknown attribute: email_confirmation" Error with rspec

Question

I am running into this error when running my tests. I have checked to make sure all the email_confirmations are spelled correctly and (unless I am crazy) they are. I'm a bit of a Rails noob, so it could be something simple.

User Model

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :email, :email_confirmation, :first_name, :last_name,
                  :password, :password_confirmation
  has_secure_password

  before_save { |user| user.email = email.downcase }

  validates :first_name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 25 }
  validates :last_name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 25 }
  VALID_EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[\w+\-.]+@[a-z\d\-.]+\.[a-z]+\z/i
  validates :email, presence: true, format: { with: VALID_EMAIL_REGEX },
                    uniqueness: { case_sensitive: false }
  validates :email_confirmation, presence: true
  validates :password, presence: true, length: { maximum: 6 }
  validates :password_confirmation, presence: true
end

Rspec tests

require 'spec_helper'

describe User do
  before { @user = User.new(email: "[email protected]",
                            first_name: "John", last_name: "Smith",
                            password: "foobar", password_confirmation: "foobar",
                            email_confirmation: "[email protected]") }

  subject { @user }

  it { should respond_to(:first_name) }
  it { should respond_to(:last_name) }
  it { should respond_to(:email) }
  it { should respond_to(:email_confirmation) }
  it { should respond_to(:password_digest) }
  it { should respond_to(:password) }
  it { should respond_to(:password_confirmation) }
  it { should respond_to(:authenticate) }

  it { should be_valid }

  describe "when first name is not present" do
    before { @user.first_name = " " }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when last name is not present" do
    before { @user.last_name = " " }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when email is not present" do
    before { @user.email = @user.email_confirmation = " " }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when password is not present" do
    before { @user.password = @user.password_confirmation = " " }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when first_name is too long" do
    before { @user.first_name = "a" * 26 }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when last_name is too long" do
    before { @user.last_name = "a" * 26 }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when email format is invalid" do
    it "should be invalid" do
      addresses = %w[user@foo,com user_at_foo.org example.user@foo.
                             foo@bar_baz.com foo@bar+baz.com]
      addresses.each do |invalid_address|
        @user.email = invalid_address
        @user.should_not be_valid
     end      
    end
  end

  describe "when email format is valid" do
    it "should be valid" do
      addresses = %w[[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]]
      addresses.each do |valid_address|
        @user.email = valid_address
        @user.should be_valid
      end      
    end
  end

  describe "when email address is already taken" do
    before do
      user_with_same_email = @user.dup
      user_with_same_email.email = @user.email.upcase
      user_with_same_email.save
    end

    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when password doesn't match confirmation" do
    before { @user.password_confirmation = "mismatch" }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when email doesn't match confirmation" do
    before { @user.email_confirmation = "[email protected]" }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when password confirmation is nil" do
    before { @user.password_confirmation = nil }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "when email confirmation is nil" do
    before { @user.email_confirmation = nil }
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe "with a password that's too short" do
    before { @user.password = @user.password_confirmation = "a" * 5 }
    it { should be_invalid }
  end

  describe "return value of authenticate method" do
    before { @user.save }
    let(:found_user) { User.find_by_email(@user.email) }

    describe "with valid password" do
      it { should == found_user.authenticate(@user.password) }
    end

    describe "with invalid password" do
      let(:user_for_invalid_password) { found_user.authenticate("invalid") }

      it { should_not == user_for_invalid_password }
      specify { user_for_invalid_password.should be_false }
    end
  end
end

schema.rb

ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20130417021135) do

  create_table "users", :force => true do |t|
    t.string   "first_name"
    t.string   "last_name"
    t.string   "email"
    t.datetime "created_at",      :null => false
    t.datetime "updated_at",      :null => false
    t.string   "password_digest"
  end

  add_index "users", ["email"], :name => "index_users_on_email", :unique => true

end

Answer 1

You're getting UnknownAttributeError because you don't have a column in your users table called email_confirmation. By default, ActiveRecord will look for DB columns named the same as the attributes you use to construct the model, but this line is trying to construct a User with an attribute the database doesn't know about:

  before { @user = User.new(email: "[email protected]",
                        first_name: "John", last_name: "Smith",
                        password: "foobar", password_confirmation: "foobar",
                        email_confirmation: "[email protected]") }

Are you really intending to save the email confirmation in the database, or are you just wanting to check that it matches email before saving it? I assume the latter, and Rails actually has built-in support for doing just that:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :email, :confirmation => true
  validates :email_confirmation, :presence => true
end

See more details on the Rails Guide to Validations, or the validates_confirmation_of API docs. (And you'll probably need to do the same thing for :password_confirmation.)