Where to create parent model instances in feature test (Capybara)? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am testing the creation of a product with Capybara, i.e., I am filling a form with automated test. This product belongs to certain models, for example, to a home.
I have two factory files to create this two models, the product and the house. In the form, user should select the home from a select (Drop down). I manage to do it, but the solution feels not clean:
(I am creating the home instance in the feature test, since I need a home to be selected in the form for the product. This house belongs to other models)
require 'rails_helper'
require 'pry'
RSpec.describe 'Add a product features' do
context "Create new product from add a product menu" do
let(:user) { create(:user) }
let!(:home) { create(:home, name: "My Place", user: user) }
before(:each) do
# home.name = "My place"
# home.save
end
before(:each) do
# binding.pry
login_as(user, :scope => :user)
visit menu_add_product_path
click_link("Take a picture")
expect(current_path).to eql('/products/new')
binding.pry
within('form') do
attach_file('product_taken_photos_attributes_0_taken_pic', File.absolute_path('./app/assets/images/macbook1.jpg'))
fill_in 'Brand', with: "Apple"
fill_in 'Product type', with: "Smartphone"
fill_in 'Price of purchase', with: 800.3
fill_in 'Date of purchase', with: "2017-05-03"
select("My place", :from => 'product_home_id')
end
end
it 'should be successful' do
binding.pry
within('form') do
fill_in 'Model', with: "Iphone 6"
end
click_button('Create Product')
binding.pry
expect(current_path).to eql(product_path(Product.last))
expect(page).to have_content 'Iphone 6'
end
# it 'should not be successful' do
# click_button('Create Product')
# expect(current_path).to eql('/products') # the post products actually!
# expect(page).to have_content(/Model can\'t be blank/)
# end
end
end
Factories:
home.rb
FactoryBot.define do
factory :home do
sequence(:name) { |n| "My Home#{n}" }
address 'c/ Viladomat n200 50 1a'
insurer
house_type
user
end
end
product.rb
FactoryBot.define do
factory :product do
model 'macbook pro'
form_brand 'apple'
form_product_type 'laptop'
price_of_purchase 1200
date_of_purchase Date.new(2017,06,06)
end
end
user.rb
FactoryBot.define do
factory :user do
sequence(:email) { |n| "myemail#{n}#mail.com" }
password 123456
end
end
house_type.rb
FactoryBot.define do
factory :house_type do
name 'Flat'
end
end
If I use the let! operator to create a home for all the tests, the test fails:
let!(:home) { create(:home, name: "My Place", user: user) }
Console log:
Capybara::ElementNotFound:
Unable to find visible option "My place" within #<Capybara::Node::Element tag="select" path="/html/body/div[2]/form/div[4]/div/div[2]/select">
But, if I create the home manually, before each test, it works
let(:home) { create(:home, name: "My Place", user: user) }
before(:each) do
home.name = "My place"
home.save
end
Why is the let! not working? If I put a binding.pry in my test, in both cases I have the created home in my database.

Answer 1

You should be configuring your factories to automatically create needed default associations so you can create a needed instance in your tests without having to create all the other non-specialized records. Your home factory should look something like
FactoryBot.define do
factory :home do
sequence(:name) { |n| "Home#{n}" }
address { 'c/ Viladomat n200 50 1a' } # You might want to define this to use a sequence too so it's unique when you create multiples
insurer
house_type
user
end
end
Something like that would then let you create a valid Home instance by just calling create(:home). If you want to customize any of associations/parameters you can pass them to the factory create/build method. So in your example it would just become
let(:home) { create(:home, name: 'My place') }
If you wanted to also manually create the user object, so you can call login(user...) rather than having to access an auto generated user like login(home.user...) then you would do
let(:user) { create(:user) }
let!(:home) { create(:home, name: 'My place', user: user }
Note the use of let! for home rather than let. This is because let is lazily evaluated so the instance won't actually be built until you first call home in your test - Since, when calling login_as(user..., you don't call home in your test you need to use let! instead so the object is created before your test is run. You also probably want to be using FactoryBot sequences in things like the email of your user factory, so that you can create more than one user in tests.
Additionally you're calling expect(current_path).to eql('/new_from_camera'), which will lead to flaky tests since the eql matcher doesn't have waiting behavior built-in. Instead you should always prefer the Capybara provided matchers which would mean calling expect(page).to have_current_path('/new_form_camera') instead.

Answer 2

I think you can add the associations directly in the home factory:
let(:insurer) { create(:insurer) }
let(:house_type) { create(:house_type) }
let(:user) { create(:user) }
let(:home) { create(:home, name: "My place", insurer: insurer, house_type: house_type, user: user) }