RSpec not recognizing deleted association - ruby-on-rails

Question

In my rails application, a user has many baskets, and a basket belongs to a user. The User class also contains an instance method that removes the user's id from all associated baskets. I am having issues testing that method using RSpec, FactoryGirl and Faker.
class Basket
belongs_to :user, optional: true
end
class User
has_many: baskets
def disassociate_baskets
baskets.each { |b| b.update(user: nil) }
end
end
The disassociate_baskets method works with real data, my RSpec test fails because in the test environment because the basket-user association persists even after running the method. Here's my testing code:
#Basket Factory
FactoryGirl.define do
factory :basket do
date { Faker::Date.backward }
end
end
#User Factory
FactoryGirl.define do
factory :user do
name { Faker::Name.name }
end
end
#user_spec.rb
describe "When deleting purchase history" do
before do
#user = create(:user)
#user1 = create(:user)
#basket = create(:basket, user: #user)
#basket1 = create(:basket, user: #user)
#basket2 = create(:basket, user: #user1)
end
it "disassociates the user from the basket" do
#user.disassociate_baskets
expect(#basket.user).to eq nil
end
end
I've inspected the objects inside the it block, and they are fine, but #basket is still associated to #user even after running disassociate_baskets method, so my test fails. What am I missing here?

Answer 1

Possible solution:
expect(#basket.reload.user).to eq nil
Why you need to reload it:
When you create the new basket and assign it to #basket, it will have an associated User assigned to it. Then, you call #user.disassociate_baskets, which loops over all the baskets of that user by instantiating them one by one, and updating their user attribute.
But since #user.disassociate_baskets instantiated brand new Basket instances, the user attribute will be set to nil only in these new instances. #basket has no idea that another instance got modified, and has to be reloaded manually.