capybara assert attributes of an element

How are you disabling the link? Is it a class you're adding? An attribute?

# Check for a link that has a "disabled" class:
page.should have_css("a.my_link.disabled")
page.should have_xpath("//a[@class='disabled']")

# Check for a link that has a "disabled" attribute:
page.should have_css("a.my_link[disabled]")
page.should have_xpath("//a[@class='disabled' and @disabled='disabled']")

# Check that the element is visible
find("a.my_link").should be_visible
find(:xpath, "//a[@class='disabled']").should be_visible

The actual xpath selectors may be incorrect. I don't use xpath often!

I recommend using have_link and find_link(name)[:disabled] in two separate assertions. While performing the second assertion alone is simpler, this makes error messages about missing links look nicer, making your test results easier to read.

expect(page).to have_link "Example"
expect(find_link("Example")[:disabled]).to be false

Note that "Example" can be changed to the name or id of the link.

Another simple solution is to access the HTML attribute you are looking for with []:

find('#my_element')['class']
# => "highlighted clearfix some_other_css_class"

find('a#my_element')['href']
# => "http://example.com

# or in general, find any attribute, even if it does not exist
find('a#my_element')['no_such_attribute']
# => ""

Note that Capybara will automatically try to wait for asynchronous requests to finish, but it may not work in some cases:

• http://www.elabs.se/blog/53-why-wait_until-was-removed-from-capybara

Here is one workaround if you are having trouble with assertions on elements that are updated asynchronously:

• http://robots.thoughtbot.com/automatically-wait-for-ajax-with-capybara

It was a bit messy to find out the correct xpath, here is the correct one,
using capybara 0.4.1.1

# <a href="/clowns?ordered_by=clumsyness" class="weep">View Clowns</a>  

page.should have_xpath("//a[@class='weep'][@href='/clowns?ordered_by=clumsyness']", :text => "View Clowns")

If you only have a link without a class, use

page.should have_link('View Clowns', :href => '/clowns?ordered_by=clumsyness')

Something like this will sadly not work:

page.should have_link('This will not work!', :href => '/clowns?ordered_by=clumsyness', :class => "weep")

The class option will be ignored.