Testing attribute changes in the database with cucumber

gistfile1.feature

Background:
  Given I am signed in as a user
  And I am on the dashboard site

Scenario: Change e-mail address
  When I follow "Edit user account"
  And I fill in "E-mail" with "new_email@example.com"
  And I press "Update user account"
  Then I should see a confirmation message
  And my "E-mail" should be "new_email@example.com"

gistfile2.rb

# it doesn't work with the following step definitions because ..

Given /^I am signed in as a user$/ do
  @user = Factory.create(:user)
  # [..] sign in
end

Then /^my "([^"]*)" should be "([^"]*)"$/ do |key, value|
  key = clean_attribute_name(key)
  @user[key].should == value
end

# .. the @user object doesn't automatically pull updates from the database

gistfile3.rb

# in order to get it to work we've to pull changes manually from the database

Then /^my "([^"]*)" should be "([^"]*)"$/ do |key, value|
  key = clean_attribute_name(key)
  @user.reload # pull changes from the database
  @user[key].should == value
end