Testing your Rails plugin

Rida Al Barazi

When I first released both ArabicHelper and SimplySearchable I didn’t have any tests for them because I didn’t know the right way to write those tests. After doing some digging and looking at other plugins tests I found out how, and I’m sharing that here with you.

Specifically for ActiveRecord extensions you need a database and models definition to test your plugin, to do that you have to:

  • Require ActiveRecord gem:
    require 'activerecord'
    
  • Establish an ActiveRecord connection to a memory based sqlite3 database:
    ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(:adapter => "sqlite3", :dbfile => ":memory:")
    
  • Define both setup_db and teardown_db:
    def setup_db
      ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 1) do
        create_table :posts do |t|
          t.column :title, :string
          t.column :body, :text
          t.column :category_id, :integer
        end
        create_table :categories do |t|
          t.column :id, :integer
          t.column :name, :string
        end
      end
    end
    
    def teardown_db
      ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables.each do |table|
        ActiveRecord::Base.connection.drop_table(table)
      end
    end
    
  • Define your models:
    class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
      belongs_to :category
    end
    class Category < ActiveRecord::Base
      has_many :posts
    end
    
  • Finally define both setup and teardown methods in your test class (Note that all the above should be placed before your test class definition):
      def setup
        setup_db
      end
    
      def teardown
        teardown_db
      end
    

That’s it, now you can write your tests as if you’re writing them in your Rails application unit tests. Check the following for more example tests:

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Tarek is the founder and chief researcher at Youngberry, a youth research and marketing firm dedicated to the region. Tarek founded interactiveME.com and previously worked as Manager at Flip Media (Interactive Agency), Bayt.com (Job Site) and Consulting House Qatar (Consulting firm). He is researcher and writer on internet & disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, and youth culture.