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Ruby

Posted by Steve Monsen
Steve Monsen
5,207 Points

Problem testing Treehouse app w/ fixture

I'm on the Fixtures video of the Treehouse app.

The test "a user should have a unique profile name" passes when I use a new user created in the test code block itself like this:

test "a user should have a unique profile name" do

  user = User.new
  user.email = "kurtz8763@gmail.com"
  user.first_name = "Steve"
  user.last_name = "Monsen"
  user.profile_name = "stevem01"
  # user.password = "password"
  # user.password_confirmation = "password"

  # user = users(:steve)

  puts "\n====================================>\n" + user.inspect
  show_error_messages(user)

  assert !user.save
  assert !user.errors[:profile_name].empty?

end

But when I try to use a fixture like this it actually saves the new user without any error messages, thereby invalidating the user.save assertion.

test "a user should have a unique profile name" do

  user = users(:steve)

  puts "\n====================================>\n" + user.inspect
  show_error_messages(user)

  assert !user.save
  assert !user.errors[:profile_name].empty?

end

and the fixtures file:

#test/fixtures/users.yml
steve:
    first_name: "Steve"
    last_name: "Monsen"
    email: "kurtz8763@gmail.com"
    profile_name: "stevem01"
#     password: "password"
#     password_confirmation: "password"

Any ideas?

1 Answer

Jason Seifer
STAFF
Jason Seifer
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Jason Seifer
Jason Seifer
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hey Steve Monsen I'm not sure I totally understand the question so please continue to ask questions if I've missed it. In the second example, you are using the fixture that's in the database so it presumably doesn't encounter another profile name that's been taken. In the first example, the fixture with the profile_name does exist to it's running in to that and not saving.

Steve Monsen
Steve Monsen
5,207 Points

Thanks for the reply, but I got it working sometime last night. I'm not sure what I had wrong, but it started working as expected at some point.

Steve Monsen
Steve Monsen
5,207 Points

Oh, ok. I get it now. The reason I wasn't understanding is because I didn't realize what fixtures were actually doing: i.e loading that data into the test db before the test is run. I was just treating fixtures as a shortcut/replacement for creating a test user in the test block itself (w/ user = User.new, etc).

I was all, "Hey, I can just write..."

user = users(:steve)

"...and use that for the test user!" Errrrr. Wrong! :)

After re-reading your reply and reading the rails guide on fixtures I get it now.

I figured it was something simple that I wasn't getting like that... a basic paradigm upon which fixtures operate. Thanks, Jason. [slowly swivels head to the side and grins]

Ian Warner
Ian Warner
5,563 Points

I've run into similar errors on this testing part? What line of code ending up making you pass with no errors? I've tried watching the video over and over and trying different things but I can't figure it out. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Ian