Question

I’m testing my User model and studying how FactoryGirl works. When I do this in my user_spec.rb:

before(:each) do
  @user = User.new(username: 'ExampleUser', email: '[e-mail]', timezone: 'Eastern Time (US & Canada)', password: 'example')
end

Everything passes, but if I do:

before(:each) do
  @user = FactoryGirl.create(:user)
end

It fails the test to see if the user’s username and email are taken already.

1) User when username is already taken
     Failure/Error: it { should_not be_valid }
       expected valid? to return false, got true
     # ./spec/models/user_spec.rb:151:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

  2) User when email address is already taken
     Failure/Error: it { should_not be_valid }
       expected valid? to return false, got true
     # ./spec/models/user_spec.rb:142:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Finished in 1.8 seconds
29 examples, 2 failures

These are the test:

  describe 'when email address is already taken' do
    before do
      user_with_same_email = @user.dup
      user_with_same_email.email = @user.email.upcase
      user_with_same_email.save
    end
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

  describe 'when username is already taken' do
    before do
      user_with_same_username = @user.dup
      user_with_same_username.username = @user.username.upcase
      user_with_same_username.save
    end
    it { should_not be_valid }
  end

Can someone explain? I thought FactoryGirl was suppose to let me use it like User.new, my first example which works.

Answer 1

FactoryGirl.create actually creates the record, whereas User.new only instantiates the model but does not actually save the record.

If you want to only instantiate the model, you should use FactoryGirl.build:

before(:each) do
  @user = FactoryGirl.build(:user)
end

See the documentation for details.

So what I think is happening with your current code is that when you create the user with FactoryGirl.create, it actually saves the record with no validation issues (since the duplicate has not been created yet). When you save the user with the same email with user_with_same_email.save, it does not actually save that user but you don’t see that. Then when you check if the original user is valid, it says yes because you already saved it before trying (and failing) to create the duplicate.

Make sense? Anyway just switch to FactoryGirl.build and both tests should pass.