Rails 5 Test Prescriptions

What’s the Problem?

What’s the big deal if I want to use normal, ordinary ActiveRecord#create in my tests? I use it in my code. What could go wrong?

Since you asked …

I’ll start with a simple test involving two users:

it "can tell which user is older" do
  eldest_user = User.create(date_of_birth: '1971-01-22')
  youngest_user = User.create(date_of_birth: '1973-08-31')
  expect(User.eldest).to eq(eldest_user)
  expect(User.youngest).to eq(youngest_user)
end

That test is deliberately simple so as not to distract from the data-creation issue. The only weird thing here is that I’m testing a hypothetical finder method, eldest, that goes into the database, so for the test it’s necessary that the objects I create come from the database. ...