Test Helpers for Rails
======================

This plugin adds a couple of class methods to Test::Unit::TestCase to make it 
easy to share helper methods between test cases in modules.

A typical Rails project has the following test directory structure:

  test/         # the root test directory
    fixtures/   # fixtures used while testing
    functional/ # functional tests
    unit/       # unit tests

The test_helpers Rails plugin adds an additional directory:

  test/
    helpers/

Drop modules in the "test/helpers" that contain code that you would like to 
share between test cases. For example. Suppose you created a couple of custom 
assertions that you would like to use in your test cases. You could create a 
custom module (MyAssertionsTestHelper) and drop it in the "test/helpers" 
directory like this:

  module MyAssertionsTestHelper

    def assert_this(expected, result)
      # implementation
    end

    def assert_that(expected, result)
      # impementation
    end

  end

Be sure that both the module name and filename end with "TestHelper" (so for 
the module above the filename should be "my_assertions_test_helper.rb").

Now, in a test case where you would like to use the test helper simply invoke 
the "test_helper" class method:

  class MyTest < Test::Unit::TestCase

    test_helper :my_assertions

    def test_custom_assertion
      assert_this(123, 456)
      assert_that("abc", "def")
    end
  
  end

The "test_helper" class method takes an array of symbols and automatically 
loads and includes the appropriate modules. In the example above it examines 
the :my_assertions symbol and concludes that you want to require 
"test/helper/my_assertions_test_helper" and include MyAssertionsTestHelper 
into your test case.

If you would like to modify the test helper load path you can do so with the 
"test_helper_paths" class method:

  class Test::Unit::TestCase
    self.test_helper_paths << '/custom/helper/path'
  end

The test helper plugin is Copyright (c) John W. Long, 2007 and is available 
under the same license as Rails.