Add the testing utility FactoryBot to your Rails project

gist-add-factorybot-to-rspec-project.md

Add and Configure FactoryBot To Your Rails RSpec Project

This guides you through adding the test data fixture utility factory_bot to your Ruby on Rails RSpec project.

To install factory_bot you will need to...

1. Add the factory_bot_rails gem to your Rails RSpec project
2. Configure factory_bot_rails to be used by RSpec Rails

🙇 📖 I originally learned this from these posts...

• Setting up Rspec and Factory Bot
• Setup Factory Bot in Rails

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Add factory_bot_rails Gem to Your Rails RSpec Project

You need to add the factory_bot_rails gem to your Gemfile but really only need it for development and test.

1. Edit your Gemfile and add gem 'factory_bot_rails' to just :development, :test group, for example...

   group :development, :test do
     # See https://guides.rubyonrails.org/debugging_rails_applications.html#debugging-with-the-debug-gem
     gem "debug", platforms: %i[ mri windows ]
   
     # Add RSpec and test utilities and tools
     gem 'factory_bot_rails'
     gem 'rspec-rails'
   end

2. Run bundle install to install the factory_bot_rails gem

   bundle install
   

   ☁️ If you are doing container-native development, be sure to run your bundle commands in the container environment

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Configure factory_bot_rails To Be Used By RSpec Rails

You need to configure RSpec Rails to use factory_bot fixtures and methods in its specs.

You can add the factory_bot configuration directly to your rails_helper file, but you may find it cleaner to create a separate file and include it.

1. Create a new spec/support/config/ directory if you do not already have one

   mkdir -p spec/support/config

2. Create a new spec/support/config/factory_bot.rb file

   touch spec/support/config/factory_bot.rb

3. Edit your spec/support/config/factory_bot.rb file to have the following...

   # frozen_string_literal: true
   
   # Add Factory Bot Methods to spec DSL
   RSpec.configure do |config|
    config.include FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods
   end

4. Save your edited spec/support/config/factory_bot.rb file

5. Edit your spec/rails_helper.rb file and add require 'support/config/factory_bot', for example...

   # Add additional requires below this line. Rails is not loaded until this point!
   require 'support/config/factory_bot'

6. Save your edited spec/rails_helper.rb file

🏃 You should now be able to use the factory_bot methods to create your factory_bot test data.

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