In rspec-0.8.0, I forked assert_select in order to get the desired rspec syntax and error messages. Yesterday, only a day after the 0.8.1 release, the specs for “response.should have_rjs” (rspec’s assert_select_rjs port) started failing against edge rails.

It didn’t take me very long to realize that forking assert_select (and its siblings – assert_select_rjs, assert_select_email, etc) was a big mistake. The only thing that is really maintainable is a very thin wrapper. As long as the API doesn’t change, the wrapper should continue to work correctly.

So I re-wrote have_tag, with_tag (for nested tags), have_rjs, be_feed and send_email to simply delegate off to assert_select – exactly as i.should have_done in the first place. This rewrite will be released with 0.8.2, probably later today.

Unfortunately, this does introduce a regression. Currently, assert_select_rjs does not support :hide or :effect, so these won’t be supported by should have_rjs.

In the short term, you’ll still be able to spec :hide and :effect using the now deprecated should_have_rjs, and hopefully we’ll be able to come up w/ some solution for should have_rjs(:hide/:effect) before 0.9, when we are slated to remove all the deprecated features.