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POWhere/what to test? Mocks, stubs, functional, unit... (in Ruby/Rails)?
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copied!<p>I'm trying to test a fairly large Rails app, which I probably should have been doing all along but never felt entirely comfortable with. Now I'm working on a functional test to see if a user is created successfully. Basically, I'd like to test a few things:</p> <ul> <li>whether the user was saved (i.e., if there's a new record in the DB)</li> <li>whether his information (name, email, etc.) is correct</li> <li>whether a couple of fields have been automatically added to the database before_create</li> <li>whether an email was sent</li> <li>whether the email text is appropriate (i.e., substitute's the user's name and activation link in the email template)</li> </ul> <p>As I understand it, unit tests are designed to test models and functional tests should test controllers. Several of the tests I mention above should be unit tests, as I see it -- specifically, I think I can make sure that inputs are correctly mapped to database fields and that the before_create filter works in a unit test with a User model.</p> <p>Others seem to call for functioanl tests -- whether the email is sent (and possibly its text -- although maybe that belongs in a UserEmail test?) and whether there's a new record.</p> <p>Here's the question about mocking/stubbing. In the user controller functional test, should I just make sure that user.save is called with the appropriate parameters, or should I test that the DB gets a new record? The former seems to call for a stub and assumes that, since Rails is so well tested, the object will be saved successfully if .save is called on the user model. But the latter (e.g., calling assert_difference) <em>feels</em> more thorough. Which to choose?</p> <p>Sorry if this is too involved a question -- I understand it's a big topic, but my hope is that understanding a specific (if long) example like this will clarify a whole lot about testing in general.</p> <p>Thanks!</p>

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