[rspec-users] a better "should have valid associations"

[Ashley Moran]

On 29 Mar 2007, at 14:03, Craig Demyanovich wrote:

> Doing more than this feels like doing too much. However, I'm still a
> bit of a beginner when it comes to Rails. Am I specifying too little?
> Am I missing something?


That's a lot more concise than my version!  I'm sure there are people  
with more informed opinions, but to me your solution looks like it  
depends a lot on the Rails implementation, so the specs would be  
useless if you wanted to switch (or could switch) to Og, say.

My specs look like this:

context "A SiteVariable (associations)" do
   setup do
     # fixtures here, then make a variable...
     @variable = SiteVariable.new(:name => "variable")
   end

   specify "should belong to SiteVariableCategory" do
     @variable.site_variable_type = @type

     @variable.should respond_to(:site_variable_category)
     @variable.should respond_to(:site_variable_category=)
     @variable.site_variable_category = @category
     @variable.save!
     variable = SiteVariable.find(@variable.id)
     variable.site_variable_category.should == @category
   end

   specify "should have many SiteValues" do
     @variable.site_variable_category = @category
     @variable.site_variable_type = @type

     site_value_1 = SiteStringValue.new(:string_value =>  
"value_1", :site => @site)
     site_value_2 = SiteStringValue.new(:string_value =>  
"value_2", :site => @site)

     @variable.should respond_to(:site_values)
     @variable.site_values.should respond_to(:<<)
     @variable.site_values << site_value_1
     @variable.site_values << site_value_2

     @variable.save.should == true

     variable_reloaded = SiteVariable.find(@variable.id)
     variable_reloaded.site_values.sort { |a, b| a.string_value <=>  
b.string_value }.should == [ site_value_1, site_value_2 ]
   end
end

It's ugly and long winded, but it tests the actual behaviour.  I'm  
sure somewhere between the two approaches there's an ideal solution.

Ashley