Font-awesome-rails helper not found within rspec

Question

I'm experiencing a problem with using the font awesome fa_icon helper when testing another helper with rspec. Within the app, the helper within the helper, works as intended; however, when I run our rspec tests for the helper that uses fa_icon it fails.

This is a simplified version of what the helper does:

def helper
  if condition
    fa_icon "some-icon"
  else
    fa_icon "some-other-icon"
  end
end

Here is one of the failures stating that fa_icon is an undefined method.

Failures:

  1) ApplicationHelper#risk_flag risk level is below 3 
     Failure/Error: subject { risk_flag(risk_level) }
     NoMethodError:
       undefined method `fa_icon' for #<RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup::Nested_1::Nested_4::Nested_1:0x000000081ed900>
     # ./app/helpers/application_helper.rb:84:in `risk_flag'
     # ./spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb:79:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
     # ./spec/helpers/application_helper_spec.rb:83:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'

Do I need to include font-awesome-rails in the spec support files in some special way? I've included it in the Gemfile in all environments.

Currently using ruby 2.1.1p176 and here is the output from bundle list | grep '\(rails\)\|\(awesome\)'

Gems included by the bundle:
  * actionmailer (4.0.4)
  * actionpack (4.0.4)
  * activemodel (4.0.4)
  * activerecord (4.0.4)
  * activerecord-deprecated_finders (1.0.3)
  * activesupport (4.0.4)
  * acts-as-taggable-on (3.1.1)
  * addressable (2.3.6)
  * arel (4.0.2)
  * bcrypt (3.1.7)
  * bourbon (3.2.0)
  * builder (3.1.4)
  * bullet (4.8.0)
  * bundler (1.6.1)
  * cancan (1.6.10)
  * capybara (2.2.1)
  * capybara-webkit (1.1.0)
  * chosen-rails (1.1.0)
  * chunky_png (1.3.0)
  * coderay (1.1.0)
  * coffee-rails (4.0.1)
  * coffee-script (2.2.0)
  * coffee-script-source (1.7.0)
  * compass (0.12.6)
  * compass-rails (1.1.7)
  * countries (0.9.3)
  * css_parser (1.3.5)
  * cucumber (1.3.14)
  * cucumber-rails (1.4.0)
  * currencies (0.4.2)
  * daemons (1.1.9)
  * database_cleaner (1.2.0)
  * devise (3.2.4)
  * diff-lcs (1.2.5)
  * docile (1.1.3)
  * dotenv (0.11.0)
  * dotenv-deployment (0.0.1)
  * easy_translate (0.5.0)
  * erubis (2.7.0)
  * eventmachine (1.0.3)
  * execjs (2.0.2)
  * factory_girl (4.4.0)
  * factory_girl_rails (4.4.1)
  * faker (1.3.0)
  * fakeweb (1.3.0)
  * font-awesome-rails (4.0.3.1)
  * foreman (0.63.0)
  * fssm (0.2.10)
  * geocoder (1.2.0)
  * gherkin (2.12.2)
  * globalize (4.0.1)
  * headless (1.0.1)
  * highline (1.6.21)
  * hike (1.2.3)
  * i18n (0.6.9)
  * i18n-tasks (0.3.11)
  * jquery-placeholder-rails (2.0.7)
  * jquery-rails (3.1.0)
  * jquery-ui-rails (4.2.1)
  * json (1.8.1)
  * jwt (0.1.11)
  * kaminari (0.15.1)
  * kgio (2.9.2)
  * launchy (2.4.2)
  * libv8 (3.16.14.3)
  * mail (2.5.4)
  * memcachier (0.0.2)
  * method_source (0.8.2)
  * mime-types (1.25.1)
  * mini_portile (0.5.3)
  * minitest (4.7.5)
  * multi_json (1.9.2)
  * multi_test (0.1.1)
  * neat (1.5.1)
  * nokogiri (1.6.1)
  * normalize-rails (3.0.1)
  * orm_adapter (0.5.0)
  * pg (0.17.1)
  * phony (2.2.5)
  * phony_rails (0.6.1)
  * polyglot (0.3.4)
  * pry (0.9.12.6)
  * pry-rails (0.3.2)
  * quiet_assets (1.0.2)
  * rack (1.5.2)
  * rack-test (0.6.2)
  * railroady (1.1.1)
  * rails (4.0.4)
  * rails_12factor (0.0.2)
  * rails_serve_static_assets (0.0.2)
  * rails_stdout_logging (0.0.3)
  * railties (4.0.4)
  * raindrops (0.13.0)
  * rake (10.3.1)
  * ref (1.0.5)
  * roadie (2.4.3)
  * rspec-core (2.14.8)
  * rspec-expectations (2.14.5)
  * rspec-mocks (2.14.6)
  * rspec-rails (2.14.2)
  * sass (3.2.19)
  * sass-rails (4.0.3)
  * selectivizr-rails (1.1.2)
  * shoulda-matchers (2.6.0)
  * simple_form (3.0.2)
  * simplecov (0.8.2)
  * simplecov-html (0.8.0)
  * simplecov-rcov (0.2.3)
  * slop (3.5.0)
  * sprockets (2.10.1)
  * sprockets-rails (2.0.1)
  * term-ansicolor (1.3.0)
  * terminal-table (1.4.5)
  * therubyracer (0.12.1)
  * thin (1.6.2)
  * thor (0.19.1)
  * thread (0.1.4)
  * thread_safe (0.3.3)
  * tilt (1.4.1)
  * timecop (0.7.1)
  * tins (1.1.0)
  * treetop (1.4.15)
  * twilio-ruby (3.11.5)
  * tzinfo (0.3.39)
  * uglifier (2.5.0)
  * unicorn (4.8.2)
  * uniform_notifier (1.4.0)
  * warden (1.2.3)
  * xpath (2.0.0)

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

The rspec guys were able to resolve my problems:

https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails/issues/1007#issuecomment-41510827

require 'spec_helper'

describe ApplicationHelper do

  describe "#risk_flag" do
    context "with risk level below 3" do
      it "generates a smile icon" do
        expect(helper.risk_flag(2)).to eq("<i class=\"fa fa-smile-o\"></i>")
      end
    end
  end

end

The main changes being that I need to call my helper off of helper