Stub method called from constructor when using Fabrication - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I've got the following model
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
before_create :set_some_values
private
def set_some_values
#do something
end
end
In specs I'm using Fabrication gem to create objects but I can't find a way to stub the set_some_values method. I tried
User.any_instance.stub!(:set_some_values).and_return(nil)
but Fabrication seems to ignore this. Is it possible to do?

Answer 1

This is why I don't like ActiveRecord callbacks -- because if you want to have nothing to do with a callback (because, say, you're making a call to an external service inside the callback) you still have to be concerned about stubbing it out. Yes you could stub out methods inside the callback, but it's the same problem, and actually it's a bit worse because now you are concerned about something inside a method you want nothing to do with.
As usual there are multiple options here.
One option which I've used a lot in the past is, add a condition to your callback that turns it off by default. So your Post class could look like:
class Post
before_save :sync_with_store, :if => :syncing_with_store?
def syncing_with_store?; #syncing_with_store; end
attr_writer :syncing_with_store
def sync_with_store
# make an HTTP request or something
end
end
Now wherever you really want to call the callback (perhaps in your controller or wherever), you can set post.syncing_with_store = true before you call post.save.
The downside to this approach is, it's something that you (and other devs working with you) have to keep in mind, and it's not really obvious that you have to do this. On the other hand, if you forget to do this, nothing bad happens.
Another option is to use a fake class. Say you have a Post that pushes its data to an external data store on save. You could extract the code that does the pushing to a separate class (e.g. Pusher) which would be accessible at Post.pusher_service. By default, though, this would be set to a fake Pusher class that responds to the same interface but does nothing. So like:
class Post
class << self
attr_accessor :pusher_service
end
self.pusher_service = FakePostPusher
before_save :sync_with_store
def sync_with_store
self.class.pusher_service.run(self)
end
end
class FakePostPusher
def self.run(post)
new(post).run
end
def initialize(post)
#post = post
end
def run
# do nothing
end
end
class PostPusher < FakePostPusher
def run
# actually make the HTTP request or whatever
end
end
In your production environment file, you'd set Post.pusher_service = Pusher. In individual tests or test cases, you'd make a subclass of Post -- let(:klass) { Class.new(Post) } -- and set klass.pusher_service = Pusher (that way you don't permanently set it and affect future tests).
The third approach, which I have been experimenting with, is this: simply don't use ActiveRecord callbacks. This is something I picked up from Gary Bernhardt's screencasts (which, by the way, are pretty amazing). Instead, define a service class that wraps the act of creating a post. Something like:
class PostCreator
def self.run(attrs={})
new(attrs).run
end
def initialize(attrs={})
#post = Post.new(attrs)
end
def run
if #post.save
make_http_request
return true
else
return false
end
end
def make_http_request
# ...
end
end
This way PostCreator.run(attrs) is the de facto way of creating a post instead of going through Post. Now to test saves within Post, there's no need to stub out callbacks. If you want to test the PostCreator process, there's no magic going on, you can easily stub out whichever methods you want or test them independently. (You could argue that stubbing out methods here is the same as stubbing out AR callbacks, but I think it's more explicit what's going on.) Obviously this only handles post creation, but you could do the same for post updating too.
Anyway, different ideas, pick your poison.

Answer 2

The #set_some_values method here is called when you call #save on the record. So it has nothing to do with the constructor and therefore you don't need to stub User.any_instance -- just make your record and then do a partial stub, as in:
record.stub(:set_some_values)
record.save