Auto-load the seed data from db/seeds.rb with rake

Question

I'm using rails-rspec gem and I have several specs (models, controllers, etc). When I run:

bundle exec rake

everything is tested. However, I would like to improve my specs by seeding some data (from db/seeds.rb) just after the database is created (in test environment).

My spec/spec_helper.rb file looks like this:

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'

require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'ruby-debug'

# Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc,
# in spec/support/ and its subdirectories.
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.mock_with :rspec

  # Remove this line if you're not using ActiveRecord or ActiveRecord fixtures
  config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"

  # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your
  # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false
  # instead of true.
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = false

  config.include SpecHelper

  config.before(:suite) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.start
    stub_xmpp_rest_client!  
  end

  config.after(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end

  config.include Devise::TestHelpers, :type => :controller
  config.include Delorean
  config.after(:each) { back_to_the_present }
  config.include Factory::Syntax::Methods
  config.extend ControllerMacros, :type => :controller
end

What could do the best way to do so? Thanks.

Answer 1

Bad idea! Never, ever, seed your test database. Use factories to create, within each test, only the records necessary for that test to pass. Seeding the test database will make your tests less reliable, because you'll be making lots of assumptions that aren't explicitly stated in your tests.

Answer 2

Depending on how your seed file is configured, you might just be able to load/run it from a before(:each) or before(:all) block:

load Rails.root + "db/seeds.rb"