Question

I kind of have a chicken and egg type problem. I have an Isp model that has a default_domain _id, that I need to populate for my tests. The problem is Domain belongs to the ISP. So I am trying to figure out how to build the factory to generate an ISP

factories/isp.rb

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :isp do
    sequence :name do |n|
      "ISP" + n.to_s
    end
  end
end

factories/domain.rb

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :domain do
    isp
    account
    sequence :dn do |n|
      "foo-#{n}.com"
    end
    active :true
  end
end

app/models/isp.rb

class Isp < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :domains
  belongs_to :default_domain, class_name: 'Domain'
 end

app/models/domain.rb

class Domain < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :isp
  ...
 end

I’ve tried using after(:create) callbacks in the factory, that just seems to create circular reference. Tried using a block to lazily evaluate it. Same thing. Just at a loss where to look next or what I should try..

Answer 1

It appears you found a solution. However, if you want to utilize factories to create the default_domain attribute, try this.

First, If you change your domain factory so that it does not reference the isp factory, you’ll avoid the circular reference.

Second, in your isp factory definition, you can do this:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :isp do
    sequence(:name) {|n| "ISP#{n}" }
    after_create do |isp|
      isp.default_domain = Domain.find_by_dn("#{isp.name}.com") ||
        FactoryGirl.create(:domain, :dn => "#{isp.name}.com")
      isp.save!
    end
  end

This will let you utilize FactoryGirl for the more complicated attributes of the Domain model, and if you wanted to customize the dn field from outside the factory, you could use transient attributes and utilize them in the after_create hook.