How to test JavaScripts without to delete the `test` database data?

Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 3.2.2, cucumber-rails-1.3.0, rspec-rails-2.8.1 and capybara-1.1.2. I would like to use Selenium in order to test JavaScripts, but without to delete the test database data each time I run the cucumber command line in my Terminal window. That is, if I state a feature like the following:

Feature: ...

  @javascript
  Scenario: ...

JavaScript is tested as well as expected. However, after the test has run, the test database data is deleted and I must seed again that database in order to properly run new tests.

I read the Official Documentation and the text present in the ROOT_APP/features/support/env.rb file (it seems that I installed all required Ruby gems - see below for more information about the Gemfile that I am using) but I didn't understand how to avoid to delete the database data and how to configure Cucumber and Capybara gems so to properly work with Selenium.

What should I make?

Note I: I would like to make the above because I would like to have the same test database data when I "test"/"run" Scenarios.

Note II: In order to seed data in the test database (my application needs that data to work), I add the following code in the RAILS_ROOT_PATH/lib/tasks/cucumber.rake file and I run the rake db:test:prepare command line from the Terminal window.

namespace :db do
  namespace :test do
    task :prepare => :environment do
      Rake::Task["db:seed"].invoke
    end
  end
end

---

In the ROOT_APP/features/support/env.rb file I tried to uncomment one and both of the following blocks of code (BTW: I never changed the original file auto-generated by the cucumber-rails gem, so it is the default one), but after running tests it still deletes the test database data.

#   Before('@no-txn,@selenium,@culerity,@celerity,@javascript') do
#     # { :except => [:widgets] } may not do what you expect here
#     # as tCucumber::Rails::Database.javascript_strategy overrides
#     # this setting.
#     DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
#   end
#
#   Before('~@no-txn', '~@selenium', '~@culerity', '~@celerity', '~@javascript') do
#     DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
#   end

---

Gemfile excerpt:

group :development, :test do
  gem "rspec-rails"
end

group :test do
  gem 'cucumber-rails'
  gem 'database_cleaner'
  gem 'capybara'
end

Answer 1

I ran into this same problem, and managed to fix it by changing the following line in ROOT_APP/features/support/env.rb

from

Cucumber::Rails::Database.javascript_strategy = :truncation

to

Cucumber::Rails::Database.javascript_strategy = :transaction

Hope this helps...