requiring records in the DB before testing

Is there any way I can require a small set of data be in the test database before any tests are run? (unit, functional, integration, cucumber, etc) Any way besides using fixtures, that is. Overload a rake task? Modify test_helper? Any ideas? (Simple Case: I have to have a minimal set of user roles defined before any users can be created)

Look at rake db:seed as one alternative.

I use fixture replacements such as Fixjour or machinist. So,

1.upto(10) do   Model.make # Machinist end

That sort of thing. It's good to put in a setup step.

Steve Ross wrote:

Hi    Chek this http://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_girl

   and its RDoc at http://rdoc.info/projects/thoughtbot/factory_girl

Sijo