So, some test helpers that we’ve been working on here at thoughtbot. Here’s what we’ve got going on for the models:
class ArticleTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
should_belong_to :article_type
should_have_and_belong_to_many :products
should_have_one :image
should_have_many :widgets, :through => :widgetization
should_require_attributes :author, :title, :body
end
Pretty nice stuff, and it does away with about 50% of the tests we would normally write. But, the controllers are proving to be a bit more tenacious. We aren’t trying to be too ambitions—we really just want to deal with the most common restful controller actions. We want these tests to pretty much ensure that the controller “acts like a controller”. This way, any deviant behavior it may have will really stand out in the test file. This is what we have, so far.
class ArticlesControllerTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
fixture :articles
def setup
@controller = ArticlesController.new
@request = ActionController::TestRequest.new
@response = ActionController::TestResponse.new
end
should_get_index
should_get_new
should_post_to_create :item_params => { :title => "Blah",
:body => 'super',
:author => 'Someone'
},
:redirect_params => { :id => 'blah' }
should_get_show :first
should_get_edit :first
should_put_to_update :first, :item_params => { :title => "Blah" },
:redirect_params => { :id => 'blah' }
should_post_to_destroy :first
end
These test everything that the autogenerated scaffold file tests, and a bit
more. They should deal with nested paths, and strange values from
ar.to_param. I’m hoping that our loyal readers will give some insight in ways
to simplify the calling signatures of the helpers. Also, let me know if you
can’t tell what they do just from reading the code above. If you can’t, then
the tests aren’t doing their job.
