This feature aims to:

• provide better error messages for RSpec DSL
• provide debug helpers for development.

NOTE: this functionality requires two additional gems to be available in the app:

• unparser
• method_source

Context

We usually describe policy rules using boolean expressions (e.g. A or (B and C), where each of A, B and C is a simple boolean expression or predicate method).

When dealing with complex policies it could be hard to figure out which predicate/check made policy to fail.

The Policy#pp(rule) method aims to help debug such situations.

Consider a (synthetic) example:

def feed?
  (admin? || allowed_to?(:access_feed?)) &&
    (user.name == "Jack" || user.name == "Kate")
end

Suppose that you want to debug this rule ("Why does it return false?").
You can drop a binding.pry (or binding.irb) right in the beginning of the method:

def feed?
  binding.pry
  #...
end

Now, run you code and trigger the breakpoint (i.e. run the method):

# now you can preview the execution of the rule using the `pp` method (defined on the policy instance)
pry> pp :feed?
MyPolicy#feed?
↳ (
    admin? #=> false
    OR
    allowed_to?(:access_feed?) #=> true
  )
  AND
  (
    user.name == "Jack" #=> false
    OR
    user.name == "Kate" #=> true
  )

# you can also check other rules or methods as well
pry> pp :admin?
MyPolicy#admin?
↳ user.admin? #=> false

This functionally is also used in RSpec DSL to format the message on failure:

describe_rule :manage? do
  succeed "when user is admin" do
    before { user.admin = true }
  end
end

Then if test fails you see the detailed error message:

$ bundle exec rspec ./spec/policies

1) UserPolucy#manage? when user is admin
Failure/Error:  ...

Expected to fail but succeed:
<UserPolicy#manage?: true>
↳ user.admin? #=> true
AND
!record.admin? #=> false

PR checklist:

• Tests included
• Documentation updated
• Changelog entry added