Foundry

by Jeremy McAnally and Nicolas Sanguinetti

Foundry is YAFRP (Yet Another Fixture Replacement Plugin), but it takes an interesting approach. It dynamically creates named_scopes and builds objects off those.

Usage

To create factory scopes, you can either use the direct method:

  Foundry.factory User, :valid_user, :name => "Jeremy", :login => "jeremy", :password => "1234"
  Foundry.factory User, :valid_user, { {conditions => {:name => "Jeremy"}}}

…or the nifty little DSL:

  Foundry.setup_foundries do
    model User do
      factory :valid_user, :name => "Jeremy", :login => "jeremy"
      factory :my_user do
        {:name => "Mr. Awesome"}
      end

      # Giving no name creates a factory with the name `valid`
      factory do
        {:login => "hello"}
      end
    end
  end

To create a record using these scopes, just do it like normal:

  User.valid_user.create

Voila!

The created scope has a method that returns the attribute hash:

        User.valid.form
        # => {:login => "hello"}

Parameters

Just like in normal named_scope usage, you can pass parameters to these scopes:

  model User do
    factory :paramd do |one, two|
      {:name => "#{one} - #{two}"}
    end
  end

Then call it like so:

  User.paramd("Mr.", "User").create

More advanced usage

Since they’re just named_scope’s you can actually chain them. So if you had a user factory like this:

  model User
    factory do
      {:name => "Jeremy", :login => "jeremy", :role => "user"}
    end
  end

You could add another…

  model User
    factory do
      {:name => "Jeremy", :login => "jeremy", :role => "hello"}
    end

    factory :with_role do |role|
      {:role => role}
    end
  end

…and then chain them:

  User.valid.with_role("admin").create

You can chain as many as you want that way.

The DSL’s model method adds a with scope which you can chain with other scopes. For example, you could use the with scope in place of the with_role scope:

  User.valid.with(:role => "admin")

The with scope overrides any previous attribute definition with its own attributes. This makes it dead simple to tweak a factory for just one test (f.e., testing permissions for a lot of roles).

NOTE: If you are not on Edge Rails/Rails 2.3, you need to put your with scopes first or they will not be merged right. There was a bug in previous versions of Rails where previous scopes took precedence over later ones.

For anyone distracted by multiple metaphors, Foundry.factory has alias Foundry.foundry.

But these are just the basic use cases, since we don’t have any random data. But, since it’s implemented the way it is, you can do interesting things like this for random data:

  model Page do
    def unique
      rand(Time.now.to_i)
    end

    10.times do |i|
      factory "valid_#{i}".to_sym, :title => "Page #{unique}"
    end
  end

  # In your tests
  Page.valid_2.create
  # => #<Page id: 3, title: "Page 123872138", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>

Or, if you’re really serious about unique data…

  # test_helper.rb / spec_helper.rb
  require 'faker'

  module Unique
    def unique(attr)
      if [:name, :first_name, :last_name].include?(attr)
        return Faker::Name.send(attr)
      elsif [:company_name, :company_bs, :company_catch_phrase].include?(attr)
        return Faker::Company.send(attr.to_s.gsub(/company_/, '')) # name is in user and company
      elsif [:email, :free_email, :user_name, :domain_name].include?(attr)
        return Faker::Internet.send(attr)
      else
        raise ArgumentError, "I'm not sure what random data you want by specifying #{attr}!"
      end
    end
  end

  module Foundry
    class Runner
      include Unique
    end
  end

  # In your foundries.rb or whatever
  model User do
    10.times do |i|
      factory "user_#{i}".to_sym, :name => unique(:name), :login => unique(:user_name), :password => "1234"
    end
  end

  # In your tests
  User.user_3.create
  # => #<User id: 6, name: "Florian Schuppe", login: "kenneth", :password => "1234", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>

OR, you could take that even one step further with a block…

  # In your foundries.rb or whatever
  model User do
    factory :unique do
     {:name => unique(:name), :login => unique(:user_name), :password => "1234"}
    end
  end

  # In your tests
  User.unique.create
  # => #<User id: 12, name: "Wanda Sharp", login: "delia", :password => "1234", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>
  User.unique.create
  # => #<User id: 13, name: "Alec Eichmann", login: "adam", :password => "1234", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>
  User.unique.create
  # => #<User id: 14, name: "Derek Gleichner", login: "jared", :password => "1234", created_at: ..., updated_at: ...>

Copyright © 2009 Jeremy McAnally, released under the MIT license