Nov
18
RSpec Mocking Association Collections
I can’t recall where I saw this example now, but it saves me a line of code and in specs, that’s important.
I often used to do the following when mocking model association collections:
projects = mock("Array of Projects")
mock_user.stub!(:projects).and_return(projects)
projects.should_receive(:find).with("1")
But with a little Ruby magic you can do this instead:
mock_user.stub!(:projects).and_return(projects = mock("Array of Projects"))
projects.should_receive(:find).with("1")
Which I think reduces a bit of noise.
Another tip I just discovered for stubs is this:
mock_user.stub!(:update_attributes => false)
instead of
mock_user.stub!(:update_attributes).and_return(false)
Again, just minor, but it makes it look cleaner.
Comments?
3 Comments
Being tests I would go for the more verbose and more descriptive definitions. It may be a bit more typing, but since tests can be very useful in understanding the logic in the code the more descriptive it can be, the better. I am a big fan of time saving shortcuts as long as they are used consistently. Once you start mixing, long and short forms is when things can get more confusing.
@peer I prefer my tests to be short and to the point, so as long as terse code is readable and understandable I am happy. Looking at my first example I have actually used mock_user.should_receive when in fact I should use a stub as the test is in fact testing the find method on the projects object and not the user.products association. I am going to edit this post to reflect that.
oh my god it works