Question

I am totally new to Rails and testing and I wrote this model:

class KeyPerformanceInd < ActiveRecord::Base
  #attr_accessible :name, :organization_id, :target

  include ActiveModel::ForbiddenAttributesProtection

  belongs_to :organization
  has_many  :key_performance_intervals, :foreign_key => 'kpi_id'

  validates :name, presence: true
  validates :target, presence: true
  validates :organization_id, presence: true

end

My question is for a model like that, what are some RSpec tests that I should write?
Somethings like this? Or there are moe things to do? I hear about FactoryGirl, Is that something I need for testing this model or that is for testing stuff in the controller?

Describe KeyPerformanceInd do
  it {should belong_to(:key_performance_interval)}
end 

Answer 1

In this case, you don’t need to do more, and you can also use the shoulda-matchers gem to make your code really clean :

it { should belong_to(:organization) }
it { should have_many(:key_performance_intervals) }

it { should validate_presence_of(:name) }
it { should validate_presence_of(:target) }
it { should validate_presence_of(:organization_id) }

And this is it.

You don’t need FactoryGirl in this case, which is used to create valid and re-usable objects. But you could use factories in your model test. A simple example :

Your factory :

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :user do
    first_name "John"
    last_name  "Doe"
  end
end

Your test :

it "should be valid with valid attributes" do  
  user = FactoryGirl.create(:user)
  user.should be_valid
end

Check the Factory Girl documentation to have more informations.