Question

I have this:

def valid_attributes
  { :email => "some_#{rand(9999)}@thing.com" }
end

For Rspec testing right? But I would like to do something like this:

def valid_attributes
  static user_id = 0
  user_id += 1
  { :email => "some_#{user_id}@thing.com" }
end

I don’t want user_id to be accessible from anywhere but that method,
is this possible with Ruby?

Answer 1

This answer is a little larger in scope than your question, but I think it gets at the root of what you’re trying to do, and will be the easiest and most maintainable.

I think what you’re really looking for here is factories. Try using something like factory_girl, which will make a lot of testing much easier.

First, you’d set up a factory to create whatever type of object it is you’re testing, and use a sequence for the email attribute:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :model do
    sequence(:email) {|n| "person#{n}@example.com" }
    # include whatever else is required to make your model valid
  end
end

Then, when you need valid attributes, you can use

Factory.attributes_for(:model)

You can also use Factory.create and Factory.build to create saved and unsaved instances of the model.

There’s explanation of a lot more of the features in the getting started document, as well as instructions on how to add factories to your project.