JSON data for rspec tests - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm creating an API that accepts JSON data and I want to provide testing data for it.
Is there anything similar to factories for JSON data? I would like to have the same data available in an object and in JSON, so that I can check if import works as I intended.
JSON has strictly defined structure so I can't call FactoryGirl(:record).to_json.

Answer 1

In cases like this, I'll create fixture files for the JSON I want to import. Something like this can work:
json = JSON.parse(File.read("fixtures/valid_customer.json"))
customer = ImportsData.import(json)
customer.name.should eq(json["customer"]["name"])
I haven't seen something where you could use FactoryGirl to set attributes, then get it into JSON and import it. You'd likely need to create a mapper that will take your Customer object and render it in JSON, then import it.

Answer 2

Following Jesse's advice, in Rails 5 now you could use file_fixture (docs)
I just use a little helper for reading my json fixtures:
def json_data(filename:)
file_content = file_fixture("#{filename}.json").read
JSON.parse(file_content, symbolize_names: true)
end

Answer 3

Actually you can do the following with factorygirl.
factory :json_data, class: OpenStruct do
//fields
end
FactoryGirl.create(:json_data).marshal_dump.to_json

Answer 4

Sometime ago we implemented FactoryJSON gem that addresses this issue. It worked quite well for us so far. Readme file covers possible use cases.

Answer 5

Here's something that works well for me. I want to create deeply nested structures without specifying individual factories for each nesting. My usecase is stubbing external apis with webmock. Fixtures don't cut it for me since I need to stub in a variety of different data.
Define the following base factory and support code:
FactoryBot.define do
factory :json, class: OpenStruct do
skip_create # Don't try to persist the object
end
end
class JsonStrategy < FactoryBot::Strategy::Create
def result(evaluation)
super.json.to_json
end
def to_sym
:json
end
end
# Makes the function FactoryBot.json available,
# which automatically returns the hash as a json string.
FactoryBot.register_strategy(:json, JsonStrategy)
I can then define the actual factory like this:
FactoryBot.define do
factory :json_response, parent: :json do
# You can define any attributes you want here because it uses OpenStruct
ids { [] }
# This attribute will be plucked by the custom strategy. All others like
# ids above will be ignored. You can still use them here though.
json do
ids.map do |id|
{
score: 90,
data: {
id: id,
},
}
end
end
end
end
Finally you can use it like this:
FactoryBot.json(:json_response, ids: [1,2])
=> "[{\"score\":90,\"data\":{\"id\":1}},{\"score\":90,\"data\":{\"id\":2}}]"