NameError: undefined local variable or method `logger'

Question

When I run 'script/server' everything works fine, but when I run my unit tests (rake test:units), I get the error below, and am not sure how to solve this.

Error

NameError: undefined local variable or method `logger' for #<GiveawayEligibleMemberTest:0x10477dff8>
    /Users/kamilski81/Sites/pe/vitality_mall/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/test_process.rb:471:in `method_missing'
    /Users/kamilski81/Sites/pe/vitality_mall/lib/update_giveaway_eligible_members.rb:17:in `is_valid_checksum?'
    /Users/kamilski81/Sites/pe/vitality_mall/test/unit/giveaway_eligible_member_test.rb:26:in `test_that_checksum_is_valid'
    /Users/kamilski81/Sites/pe/vitality_mall/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/setup_and_teardown.rb:60:in `__send__'
    /Users/kamilski81/Sites/pe/vitality_mall/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/setup_and_teardown.rb:60:in `run'

I tried putting:

class Test::Unit::TestCase
  RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER = Logger.new(STDOUT)
  RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER.level = Logger::WARN

  logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
  logger.level = Logger::WARN
end

Here is the code that is using my logger:

def is_valid_checksum?(csv_arr)
  expected_row_count = csv_arr[0][3].to_i
  logger.debug "Expected record count: #{expected_row_count}"
  actual_row_count = csv_arr.nitems - 1
  logger.debug "Actual record count: #{actual_row_count}"
  checksum_valid = false
  if expected_row_count == actual_row_count
    logger.debug "Checksum is valid"
    checksum_valid = true
  end

  return checksum_valid
end

But this still does not solve the error

Answer 1

You can use the Rails logger outside of models and controllers:

Rails.logger.info "..."

Source

Answer 2

The logger method isn't available to test cases instance methods.

You have defined a local variable in your class definition but this isn't enough. The logger variable falls out of scope once the class is initialized. You may be looking for a class variable (@@logger). But a cleaner solution would be wrapping it in a method like this.

class Test::Unit::TestCase
  def logger
    RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER ||= Logger.new(STDOUT)
  end
end

Notice this code will use the default logger if it is available (which it should be). If this isn't desired, you can make your own just as easily.

def logger
  @logger ||= Logger.new(STDOUT)
end