How to set up factory in FactoryGirl with has_many association

Can someone tell me if I'm just going about the setup the wrong way?

I have the following models that have has_many.through associations:

class Listing < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible ... 

  has_many :listing_features
  has_many :features, :through => :listing_features

  validates_presence_of ...
  ...  
end


class Feature < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible ...

  validates_presence_of ...
  validates_uniqueness_of ...

  has_many :listing_features
  has_many :listings, :through => :listing_features
end


class ListingFeature < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :feature_id, :listing_id

  belongs_to :feature  
  belongs_to :listing
end

I'm using Rails 3.1.rc4, FactoryGirl 2.0.2, factory_girl_rails 1.1.0, and rspec. Here is my basic rspec rspec sanity check for the :listing factory:

it "creates a valid listing from factory" do
  Factory(:listing).should be_valid
end

Here is Factory(:listing)

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :listing do
    headline    'headline'
    home_desc   'this is the home description'
    association :user, :factory => :user
    association :layout, :factory => :layout
    association :features, :factory => :feature
  end
end

The :listing_feature and :feature factories are similarly setup.
If the association :features line is commented out, then all my tests pass.
When it is

association :features, :factory => :feature

the error message is undefined method 'each' for #<Feature> which I thought made sense to me because because listing.features returns an array. So I changed it to

association :features, [:factory => :feature]

and the error I get now is ArgumentError: Not registered: features Is it just not sensible to be generating factory objects this way, or what am I missing? Thanks very much for any and all input!

Solution 1:

Alternatively, you can use a block and skip the association keyword. This makes it possible to build objects without saving to the database (otherwise, a has_many association will save your records to the db, even if you use the build function instead of create).

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :listing_with_features, :parent => :listing do |listing|
    features { build_list :feature, 3 }
  end
end

Solution 2:

Creating these kinds of associations requires using FactoryGirl's callbacks.

A perfect set of examples can be found here.

https://thoughtbot.com/blog/aint-no-calla-back-girl

To bring it home to your example.

Factory.define :listing_with_features, :parent => :listing do |listing|
  listing.after_create { |l| Factory(:feature, :listing => l)  }
  #or some for loop to generate X features
end

Solution 3:

You could use trait:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :listing do
    ...

    trait :with_features do
      features { build_list :feature, 3 }
    end
  end
end

With callback, if you need DB creation:

...

trait :with_features do
  after(:create) do |listing|
    create_list(:feature, 3, listing: listing)
  end
end

Use in your specs like this:

let(:listing) { create(:listing, :with_features) }

This will remove duplication in your factories and be more reusable.

https://robots.thoughtbot.com/remove-duplication-with-factorygirls-traits

Solution 4:

I tried a few different approaches and this is the one that worked most reliably for me (adapted to your case)

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :user do
    # some details
  end

  factory :layout do
    # some details
  end

  factory :feature do
    # some details
  end

  factory :listing do
    headline    'headline'
    home_desc   'this is the home description'
    association :user, factory: :user
    association :layout, factory: :layout
    after(:create) do |liztng|
      FactoryGirl.create_list(:feature, 1, listing: liztng)
    end
  end
end

Solution 5:

Since FactoryBot v5, associations preserve build strategy. Associations are the best way to solve this and the docs have good examples for it:

FactoryBot.define do
  factory :post do
    title { "Through the Looking Glass" }
    user
  end

  factory :user do
    name { "Taylor Kim" }

    factory :user_with_posts do
      posts { [association(:post)] }
    end
  end
end

Or with control over the count:

    transient do
      posts_count { 5 }
    end

    posts do
      Array.new(posts_count) { association(:post) }
    end