Rspec Using Development Database

Question

I am using Rails 4.2 with Ruby 2.2 and rspec for testcases. I have set

Rails.env = 'test'

in both my spec_helper and rails_helper. Here is my database.yml file:

development:
  adapter: postgresql
  encoding: unicode
  database: app_dev
  pool: 5
  username: postgres
  password: root

test:
  adapter: postgresql
  encoding: unicode
  database: app_test
  pool: 5
  username: postgres
  password: root

production:
  adapter: postgresql
  encoding: unicode
  database: app_prod
  pool: 5
  username: postgres
  password: root

Here is my rails_helper:

Rails.env = 'test'
require 'spec_helper'
require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
Dir[Rails.root.join('spec/support/**/*.rb')].each { |f| require f }

ActiveRecord::Migration.maintain_test_schema!

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include JsonHelper
  config.include PathHelper
  config.include S3Helper
  config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true
  config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!
end

application.rb:

require File.expand_path('../boot', __FILE__)

require 'rails/all'
require 'yaml'
# Require the gems listed in Gemfile, including any gems
# you've limited to :test, :development, or :production.
Bundler.require(*Rails.groups)

module AppName
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.generators do |g|
      g.assets = false
      g.helper = false
      g.views = false
    end

    # Load all locale files
    config.i18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join('config', 'locales', '**', '*.{rb,yml}')]
    config.i18n.load_path += Dir[Rails.root.join(
                              'config', 'locales', '**', '**', '*.{rb,yml}')]
    config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib)
    config.autoload_paths += Dir["#{config.root}/lib/**/"]
    config.autoload_paths += Dir["#{config.root}/app/workers/"]
    config.action_controller.include_all_helpers = false
    config.active_record.schema_format           = :sql
    config.i18n.available_locales = [:en, :hi, :mr]
    config.i18n.default_locale = :hi
    config.i18n.fallbacks = [:en]
    config.active_record.raise_in_transactional_callbacks = true
  end
end

Gemfile:

source 'https://rubygems.org'

# Bundle edge Rails instead: gem 'rails', github: 'rails/rails'
gem 'rails', '4.2.0'

# Use postgresql as the database for Active Record
gem 'pg', '~> 0.18.2'

# Use SCSS for stylesheets
gem 'sass-rails', '~> 5.0'

# Use Uglifier as compressor for JavaScript assets
gem 'uglifier', '>= 1.3.0'

# Use CoffeeScript for .coffee assets and views
gem 'coffee-rails', '~> 4.1.0'
# Turbolinks makes following links in your web application faster
gem 'turbolinks', '~> 2.5.3'

# Use Unicorn as the app server
gem 'unicorn', '~> 4.9.0'

# Use jquery as the JavaScript library
gem 'jquery-rails', '~> 4.0.4'

# Integrate the jQuery Validation plugin into the Rails asset pipeline
gem 'jquery-validation-rails', '~> 1.13.1'

# Build JSON APIs with ease. Read more: https://github.com/rails/jbuilder
gem 'jbuilder', '~> 2.0'

# bundle exec rake doc:rails generates the API under doc/api.
gem 'sdoc', '~> 0.4.0', group: :doc

# use swagger for api documentation
gem 'swagger-docs', '~> 0.1.9'

# for consuming restful web services
gem 'httparty', '~> 0.13.5'

# for ActiveRecord model/data translations
gem 'globalize', '~> 5.0.0'

# generates accessors for translated fields
gem 'globalize-accessors', '~>0.2.1'

# Amazon Web service SDK Ruby
gem 'aws-sdk', '~> 2.1.0'

# cloud services for S3
gem 'fog', '~> 1.33.0'

# handle file uploads
gem 'carrierwave', '~>0.10.0'

# Photo Resizing
gem 'mini_magick', '~> 4.2.7'

# Background Jobs
gem 'sidekiq', '~> 3.4.2'

# Geocoder
gem 'geocoder', '~> 1.2.9'

# active admin
gem 'activeadmin', '~> 1.0.0.pre1'

# for authentication
gem 'devise', '~> 3.5.1'

# for roles of active admin
gem 'rolify', '~> 4.0.0'

# for authorization
gem 'cancan', '~> 1.6.10'

group :development, :test do
  # Debugging using pry
  gem 'pry-rails', '~> 0.3.4'
  gem 'pry-byebug', '~> 3.1.0'

  # testing framework for rails
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 3.1.0'
  gem 'rspec-collection_matchers', '~> 1.1.2'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', '~> 4.4.1'
  gem 'shoulda-matchers', '~> 2.8.0'

  # code test coverage
  gem 'simplecov', '~> 0.7.1'
  gem 'simplecov-rcov', '~> 0.2.3'
  # Access an IRB console on exception pages or by using <%= console %> in views
  gem 'web-console', '~> 2.0'

  # speeds up development by keeping your application running in the background
  gem 'spring', '~> 1.3.6'
end

group :development do
  # generates ER diagrams for rails application
  gem 'rails-erd', '~> 1.4.1'
end

group :test do
  # set of strategies for cleaning your database
  gem 'database_cleaner', '~> 1.3.0'
end

When I run my test cases, Rails.env is 'test' as expected (used pry to verify). However my test cases are always hitting the development database.

Rails.env
#=> "test"

ActiveRecord::Base.connection_config
#=> {:adapter=>"postgresql", :encoding=>"unicode", :database=>"app_dev", :pool=>5, :username=>"postgres", :password=>"root"}

spec_helper:

require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'simplecov'
require 'simplecov-rcov'
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'factory_girl_rails'

ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'test'
SimpleCov.start

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
  # Database Cleaner
  config.before(:suite) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
    Rails.application.load_seed
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.start
  end

  config.after(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end

  config.expect_with :rspec do |expectations|
    expectations.include_chain_clauses_in_custom_matcher_descriptions = true
  end

  config.mock_with :rspec do |mocks|
    mocks.verify_partial_doubles = true
  end
end

SimpleCov.formatter = SimpleCov::Formatter::RcovFormatter

I have been scratching my head since last few hours but nothing seems to solve the mystery. Any help would be greatful!

Answer 1

The reason your tests hit the development database is because you have defined ENV['DATABASE_URL'] somewhere in your environment.

There are two ways of specifying the database connection to be used:

1. Specifying the ENV['DATABASE_URL']
2. Using the very popular database.yml file

In many cases the first one takes prescedence over the latter.

I realized I had a problem similar to yous after using ENV['DATABASE_URL'] to set my production database, only to find out that all my environments (test & development) suddenly had started to use my production database regardless of content in database.yml.

To solve my problem all I did was change the name on the environment variable to something else, so that it no longer overwrite my database.yml configurations.

Reading this will solve your problem: Connection Preference information

Answer 2

It sounds as though somewhere in your environment (maybe one of your gems) it is setting your environment to dev or establishing a connection to your dev database.

To explicitly make it connect to the test database, add:

ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection

to your rails_helper.

Prime candidate for troublemaker would be `gem 'rails-erd', '~> 1.4.1'. If you have this as auto-generating the diagram on migrate, when the test schema is migrated, it will connect to the dev database to dump a diagram.

Try removing this gem or perhaps the '.rake' file and see what happens.

Answer 3

Your rails_helper looks strange. The first line says:

Rails.env = 'test'

At the first line you don't have Rails loaded yet (I suppose you run RSpec using bundle exec rspec). So it should raise an error.

Therefore I made a small change in rails_helper:

require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__)
Rails.env = 'test'
require 'spec_helper'
require 'rspec/rails'
Dir[Rails.root.join('spec/support/**/*.rb')].each { |f| require f }

# the rest

Now putting

expect(ActiveRecord::Base.connection_config[:database]).to match(/test/)

somewhere in your spec, should pass successfully.

Answer 4

1) Add require: false to the declaration of 'rails-erd' gem

gem 'rails-erd', '~> 1.4.1', require: false

2) In your spec_helper.rb, replace Rails.env = 'test' by ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'test'

3) Verify in your bin/rspec (if present) that you don't have any instruction changing the value of env

4) Then stop spring from the command line

spring stop

5) Run your specs from the command line

rspec

Answer 5

You can run rspc with RAILS_ENV=test bundle exec rspec spec

Also you can put inside rails_helper.rb

Rails.env = 'test'

Also move testing framework section from development test to test inside gemfile

group :test do
  # testing framework for rails
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 3.1.0'
  gem 'rspec-collection_matchers', '~> 1.1.2'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', '~> 4.4.1'
  gem 'shoulda-matchers', '~> 2.8.0'

  # set of strategies for cleaning your database
  gem 'database_cleaner', '~> 1.3.0'
end

Answer 6

My answer applies to anyone who is using Rspec with Ruby outside of Rails. For example, let's say you are creating a Ruby gem. Well, you can still add a database.yml in a config folder in your project and specify a test option:

test:
  adapter: 'mysql2'
  encoding: utf8mb4
  collation: utf8mb4_bin
  pool: 1
  username: root
  password:
  host: localhost
  database: 'my_site_test'

Now you can add the following in spec_helper.rb:

  config.before :suite do
    ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(YAML.load(File.open(File.expand_path("../../lib/my_gem_config/database.yml", __FILE__)))["test"])
  end  

The :suite scope indicates that the block of code should be run once before the suite of tests, that means all of your tests.

Answer 7

Just put ENV["RAILS_ENV"] = "test" at the top of rails_helper