Unit testing ActiveRecord code

[Mike Christensen]

When writing unit tests for code that uses ActiveRecord, I want to be
able to call stuff like "Save()" and "Create()" without actually
touching the DB (I just want to no-op).. Is there an easy way to run
AR in "test mode" or do I have to abstract all the calls that actually
touch the DB. Thanks!

Mike

[Mauricio Scheffer]

Use InMemoryTest. See http://mortslikeus.blogspot.com/2009/07/activerecord-beta-1-released.html

[Markus Zywitza]

InMemoryTest is not technically a no-op. A real no-op solution is shown here:

trunk\Samples\Castle\Guide.docx

It's a work in progress and currently stopped, but it contains a no-op testing strategy.

-Markus

2009/10/18 Mauricio Scheffer <mauricio...@gmail.com>

[Srdjan Pejic]

You could also create a test database and run your tests on that.
SetUp and TearDown methods will make sure you don't leave data in the
database.

Srdjan

[Brian DeMarzo]

If you don't want to touch a repository, why call Save() or Create()?
If it's to test business logic related to saving or creating (such as
validation), can you just test that separately?

I've found saving against an actual test SQL database, prepopulated
with data I can use for testing, quite useful, and have a blog post
about how I did it:
http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2009/01/14/unit-testing-an-activerecord-domain-model-with-nunit/


- b

[Markus Zywitza]

While testing against a test database is necessary for some scenarios, it requires you to initialize AR per test, which slows down testing. Stubbing AR-methods speeds up testing a lot.

-Markus

2009/10/20 Brian DeMarzo <bdem...@gmail.com>