[rspec-users] Best practices for managing fixtures outside Rails?...

[Scott Taylor]

On May 14, 2010, at 8:25 PM, Stu wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have a non-Rails Ruby project that uses RSpec.  It needs a shared
> collection of fixture-like objects created, although they have nothing
> to do with Rails, AR or database entries:
> 
> w1 = Widget.new(10)
> w2 = Widget.new(20)
> w3 = Widget.new(30)
> # ...
> 
> g1 = Gadget.new(w1, w2)
> g2 = Gadget.new(w3, w1)
> g3 = Gadget.new(w2, w3)
> #...
> 
> Currently these are in a shared examples.rb file and are brought into
> various *_spec.rb files in a way that feels like a real hack.  I've
> since discovered a fork of Machinist that works with PORO's and allows
> those object to have an initializer with arguments, so I should be
> able to replace the above with machinist blueprints etc.
> 
> I figure I'm not the first person in the world to be using RSpec and
> fixture-like objects in this way, so are there any best practices for
> doing this outside Rails? I've read this a number of times, but it's
> starting to sink in that projects need to manage their specs/tests
> with the same agility and care they devote to the code.
> 
> Any advice much appreciated,

I've always used FixtureReplacement in place of fixtures, which clears up my spec/fixtures directory.

Often on rails projects I'll have spec/fixtures/mailers, and possibly other random files in spec/fixtures, scaling up the organization as necessary.  Any of the ruby files I'll require from the spec_helper.

Regards,

Scott