Unit testing confusion

[David Turnbull]

Hey all,

I'm following along with AWDWR, specifically the unit testing.
On page 148, it shows you how Test::Unit::TestCase will automatically
define instance variables based on your fixtures.

It doesn't seem to actually work, though. It seems that both @artists
["beatles"]["name"] and @beatles.name are nil objects in my test,
where as artistsbeatles).name works ok.

What is the right way of doing it? I'd guess the one that actually
works is right, but there's a lot of stuff on google about the other
ways that I can't get to work.


The actual error messages for the failed assertions are different:

@artists["beatles"]["name"]:

test_create(ArtistTest):
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.name
test/unit/artist_test.rb:15:in `test_create'

@beatles.name:

test_create(ArtistTest):
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occured while evaluating nil.[]
test/unit/artist_test.rb:14:in `test_create'


test/fixtures/artists.yml:

beatles:
id: 1
name: The Beatles


test/unit/artist_test.rb:

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

class ArtistTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
fixtures :artists

def setup
@artist = Artist.find(1)
end

def test_create
assert_equal @artists["beatles"]["name"], @artist.name #
fails
assert_equal @beatles.name, @artist.name #
fails
assert_equal artistsbeatles).name, @artist.name #
works
end
end

 

[David Turnbull]

Sorry, wrong mailing list >_<

 

[Edward Garson]

you need to set "instantiated_fixtures" to true in test_helper.rb:

self.use_instantiated_fixtures = true

kind regards