Factory-girl create that bypasses my model validation

Question

I am using Factory Girl to create two instances in my model/unit test for a Group. I am testing the model to check that a call to .current returns only the 'current' groups according to the expiry attribute as per below...

  describe ".current" do
    let!(:current_group) { FactoryGirl.create(:group, :expiry => Time.now + 1.week) }
    let!(:expired_group) { FactoryGirl.create(:group, :expiry => Time.now - 3.days) }

    specify { Group.current.should == [current_group] }
  end

My problem is that I've got validation in the model that checks a new group's expiry is after today's date. This raises the validation failure below.

  1) Group.current 
     Failure/Error: let!(:expired_group) { FactoryGirl.create(:group, :expiry => Time.now - 3.days) }
     ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid:
       Validation failed: Expiry is before todays date

Is there a way to forcefully create the Group or get around the validation when creating using Factory Girl?

Solution 1

This isn't very specific to FactoryGirl, but you can always bypass validations when saving models via save(validate: false):

describe ".current" do
  let!(:current_group) { FactoryGirl.create(:group) }

  let!(:old_group) do
    g = FactoryGirl.build(:group, expiry: Time.now - 3.days)
    g.save(validate: false)
    g
 end
      
 specify { Group.current.should == [current_group] }
end

Solution 2

I prefer this solution from https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_girl/issues/578.

Inside the factory:

trait :without_validations do
  to_create { |instance| instance.save(validate: false) }
end

Solution 3

It's a bad idea to skip validations by default in factory. Some hair will be pulled out finding that.

The nicest way, I think:

trait :skip_validate do
  to_create {|instance| instance.save(validate: false)}
end

Then in your test:

create(:group, :skip_validate, expiry: Time.now + 1.week)

Solution 4

foo = build(:foo).tap { |u| u.save(validate: false) }

Solution 5

For this specific date-baesd validation case, you could also use the timecop gem to temporarily alter time to simulate the old record being created in the past.

View more solutions

Comments

[Kyle Heironimus]

This is a much more elegant solution than the accepted one.

[tgf]

Keep in mind that if you did this for your general purpose factory you'd be skipping validations EVERY time you did create on that factory. It's probably best to use this technique only on a sub-factory (or in a trait).

[David Hempy]

See Jason Denney's answer below for a better solution.

[David Hempy]

You'll almost certainly want to put this in a trait. See the answer by Tim Scott, below.

[adaam]

Is there a way to apply this to all factories?

[yefrem]

since 1.9.1 you can do g.tap { |g| g.save(validate: false) }