Use httparty with rspec and capybara

test_party.rb

# Simple demonstration of using httparty in an rspec test suite
# capybara's not required, but if you're otherwise using a capybara
# acceptance test suite this method complements the other drivers
# in your suite such as rack test, selenium or mechanize. 

# Specifically - selenium is slow, rack test doesn't work remotely, 
# and mechanize doesn't work well with pages that have AJAX/JS DOM manipulation
# Sometimes an old school get or post is what you need

# fwiw my use case for this is an rspec-driven performance test
# see more at  http://blog.joshdzielak.com/blog/2011/08/23/use-httparty-with-rspec-and-capybara/

# anyway. so, within spec helper ->
require 'httparty'

class TestParty
  include HTTParty
  base_uri "http://localhost:3000"

  #set if you want to assert redirects as successful outcomes
  #may lead to faster tests - server won't be hit on the follow
  no_follow true 
  
  #optional proxy support
  if proxy = ENV['PROXY'] #http://localhost:8888
    proxy = URI.parse(proxy)
    http_proxy proxy.host, proxy.port
  end
end

#as used in examples ->
describe "signup" do
  it "should redirect to /account_created given valid data" do
    data = {
      "user[username]" => "boarse",
      "user[password]" => "Pa55word",
      "user[password_confirmation]" => "Pa55word"
    }

    begin
      response = TestParty.post('/signup', :body => data)
    rescue HTTParty::RedirectionTooDeep => redirection  #strange, but prescribed approach
      redirection.response.code.should == "302"
      redirection.response.header["Location"].should =~ /account_created/
    end
  end
end

Updated. Thanks much!