differences in default unit tests between Rails versions

rubyonrails-talk
1

In my efforts to upgrade our site from 2.1.0 to 3.0.x, I have upgraded to 2.2.2 and the site works, but I am working on understanding tests, fixtures and the whole deal. So realizing that upgrading really means testing, what I actually did was look the schema.rb file for our 2.1.0 site and then created a blank Rails 2.2.2 site and used scaffold (gasp) to generate a fully baked model, controller, view, and tests that had the same fields. My table is job_posts and the corresponding unit test was job_post_test.rb

So, two questions. When I compare the two I see differences in the structure. Our current 2.1.0 site test had the following: require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../test_helper'

class JobPostTest < Test::Unit::TestCase   fixtures :job_posts

  # Replace this with your real tests.   def test_truth     assert true   end end

So, I go over the freshly minted, empty 2.2.2 app and look at the test created when I scaffolded and saw: require 'test_helper'

class JobPostTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase   # Replace this with your real tests.   test "the truth" do     assert true   end end

Is some of this because the default test syntax has changed? Is there a way to re-create the unit tests in my older app? Basically, tell Rails to overwrite the older unit tests and create new ones that match the tables in the schema.rb? I understand the default tests don't do much, but I would like to start with a clean slate since I don't think our sites tests have much in them anyway.

2

Rails can't guess what your models should do, so it can't possibly rewrite your tests. It would be possible to write something that would rewrite

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../test_helper'

to

require 'test_helper'

but you could just use search & replace in your editor.

test "foo" do end

is just a style thing. Behind the scenes it will generate a test_foo method, and you can continue to just write def test_foo (about the only different is that test 'foo' will raise an error if there is already a test with that name

Fred

3

If your app does not already have decent tests, so you are starting effectively from scratch with the testing, then I would advise against using fixtures. Instead use a factory such as Machinist or FactoryGirl. Google for the terms and you will find discussions on the reasons.

Colin