#158 Factories not Fixtures (revised)

Oct 27, 2011 | 9 minutes | Testing, Tools

Fixtures are external dependencies which can make tests brittle and difficult to read. In this episode I show how to use Factory Girl to generate the needed records directly in the tests.

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          Gemfile
        
group :test do
  gem 'factory_girl_rails'
end

          spec/spec_helper.rb
        
RSpec.configure do |config|
  # ...
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
end

          spec/factories.rb
        
FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :user do
    sequence(:username) { |n| "foo#{n}" }
    password "foobar"
    email { "#{username}@example.com" }
    admin false
    
    factory :admin do
      admin true
    end
  end
  
  factory :article do
    name "Foo"
    user
  end
end

          user_spec.rb
        
describe User do
  it "authenticates with matching username and password" do
    user = create(:user, username: "batman", password: "secret")
    User.authenticate("batman", "secret").should eq(user)
  end

  it "does not authenticate with incorrect password" do
    create(:user, username: "batman", password: "secret")
    User.authenticate("batman", "incorrect").should be_nil
  end

  it "can manage articles he owns" do
    article = build(:article)
    user = article.user
    user.can_manage_article?(article).should be_true
    user.can_manage_article?(Article.new).should be_false
  end

  it "can manage any articles as admin" do
    build(:admin).can_manage_article?(Article.new).should be_true
    build(:user).can_manage_article?(Article.new).should be_false
  end
end