---
title: 'FactoryBot 1.2: Adding Excitement to Stale Factories'
teaser:
tags: news,web,ruby,testing,open source,factory_girl,factory_bot
author: Joe Ferris
published_on: 2009-02-17
---

## Some like it hot

![''](http://images.thoughtbot.com/ui/2009-2-17-sim_city_1.jpg)

The FactoryBot syntax was designed to balance best practices, consistency,
readability, and brevity, and to handle all of the features we wanted to
support. However, users haven’t been shy to point out that not everybody is a
fan of our factory flavor

If you think mixing in some FactoryBot would be good for your project, but
don’t care much for the taste, you can try out one of the new alternate
syntaxes:

    # Use factory_bot machinist-style
    require 'factory_bot/syntax/blueprint'
    require 'factory_bot/syntax/sham'
    require 'factory_bot/syntax/make'

    Sham.email {|n| "email#{n}@example.com" }

    User.blueprint do
      name  { 'Billy Bob' }
      email { Sham.email  }
    end

# Or build factories like daddy did

    require 'factory_bot/syntax/generate'

    User.generate
    User.generate!
    User.spawn
    User.generate {|user| user.something }

Give one of our other flavors a whirl, and let us know what you think.

## Mix in a few stubs to cut down on fat

If you do view testing, or isolation testing in general, you’re probably sick of
creating database records that you’re just going to return from a stubbed method
anyway. Want pure mock objects? Don’t want to stub out attributes you need for
view tests? Use Factory.stub:

```ruby
context "on GET to show" do
  setup do
    @user = Factory.stub(:user)
    stub(User).find(anything) { @user }
  end

  should "display the user's name" do
    # ...
  end

  # ... more view tests
end
```

## Just a spoonful of sugar

Sometimes a sequence is required for just a single factory, and defining the
sequence separately is just a little too much to type. Got a one-off sequence?
Define it inline:

    Factory.define :airport do |factory|
      factory.sequence(:code) {|n| "AA#{n}" }
    end

## Don’t use a fork when a spoon will do

factory\_bot works great for any class that accepts attributes after
initialization, like ActiveMerchant CreditCards. However, doing a Factory.build
to avoid a save! for other classes can make these factories a little harder to
swallow. If you’re using factory\_bot for a class that doesn’t use save!, try
changing the default strategy:

```ruby
Factory.define :credit_card,
    :class            => 'ActiveMerchant::Billing::CreditCard',
    :default_strategy => :build do |factory|
  # ...attributes for a credit card...
end
```

## I eat my factories dry

Defining attributes you don’t need on a factory can cause your tests to make
assumptions they shouldn’t, but it can be pretty inconvenient to repeat all
those base attributes for convenient alternate factories. Falling asleep from
typing the same attributes over and over? Wake up to the most-requested feature
for factory\_bot: inheritence!

```ruby
Factory.define :post do |factory|
  factory.title "Every post needs a title!"
end

Factory.define :approved_post, :parent => :post do |factory|
  factory.approved true
  # Approved posts need to be approved by somebody!
  factory.association :approver, :factory => :user
end
```

## Nutritional information

The FactoryBot [docs](https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot) have been
updated and revamped, so be sure to hit those up if you have questions on older
or newer functionality.

If you’d like to add another syntax, or have a feature you’re itching for,
please create a clone of our [repository on
github](http://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/tree/master) (please be sure
to read the [contribution
guidelines](https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/blob/master/CONTRIBUTION_GUIDELINES.md)).

Thanks to [Josh
Nichols](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/10749-josh-nichols) for
documentation patches, and a big thank you to [Eugene
Bolshakov](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9178-eugene-bolshakov) for his
huge contributions to this release.

* * *

**Disclaimer:**

Looking for FactoryGirl? The library was renamed in 2017.
[Project name history can be found here.](https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/blob/master/NAME.md)

Visit our [Open Source page](https://thoughtbot.com/open-source) to learn more about our team's contributions.