FactoryGirl + Rspec custom validation test - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm pretty new to testing.
I have a custom validation at my Profile model
def birth_date_cannot_be_in_the_future
errors.add(:birth_date, "the birth date cannot be in the future") if
!birth_date.blank? && birth_date > Date.today
end
At my factories.rb
sequence(:email) {|n| "person-#{n}#example.com"}
factory :user do
email
password 'password'
password_confirmation 'password'
confirmed_at Time.now
end
factory :profile do
user
first_name { "User" }
last_name { "Tester" }
birth_date { 21.years.ago }
end
At my models/profile_spec.rb
it 'birth date cannot be in the future' do
profile = FactoryGirl.create(:profile, birth_date: 100.days.from_now)
expect(profile.errors[:birth_date]).to include("the birth date cannot be in the future")
expect(profile.valid?).to be_falsy
end
When I run my test I receive the follow message:
Failure/Error: profile = FactoryGirl.create(:profile, birth_date: 100.days.from_now)
ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid:
The validation fails: Birth date the birth date cannot be in the future
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

There's a matcher just for catching errors. Without having tested, I'm assuming you can go:
expect { FactoryGirl.create(:profile, birth_date: 100.days.from_now) }.to raise_error(ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid)
Another approach though is to include the shoulda gem, which has the allow_value matcher. This lets you do something more like this in your model spec:
describe Profile, type: :model do
describe 'Birth date validations' do
it { should allow_value(100.years.ago).for(:birth_date) }
it { should_not allow_value(100.days.from_now).for(:birth_date) }
end
end
Generally you wont need FactoryGirl at all when you're testing things like validations. They become super useful in controller tests though.
Just put assertions for your model in a model spec, which tests your model code directly. These usually live in spec/models/model_name_spec.rb There are convenient shoulda matchers for a bunch of common model stuff:
describe SomeModel, type: :model do
it { should belong_to(:user) }
it { should have_many(:things).dependent(:destroy) }
it { should validate_presence_of(:type) }
it { should validate_length_of(:name).is_at_most(256) }
it { should validate_uniqueness_of(:code).allow_nil }
end

Answer 2

It should be using build instead of create
Also profile.valid? should be called before checking profile.errors
it 'birth date cannot be in the future' do
profile = FactoryGirl.build(:profile, birth_date: 100.days.from_now)
expect(profile.valid?).to be_falsy
expect(profile.errors[:birth_date]).to include("the birth date cannot be in the future")
end