database_cleaner/README.textile

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h1. Database Cleaner
Database Cleaner is a set of strategies for cleaning your database in Ruby.
The original use case was to ensure a clean state during tests. Each strategy
is a small amount of code but is code that is usually needed in any ruby app
that is testing with a database.
ActiveRecord, DataMapper, Sequel, MongoMapper, Mongoid, and CouchPotato are supported.
Here is an overview of the strategies supported for each library:
|_. ORM |_. Truncation |_. Transaction |_. Deletion |
| ActiveRecord | Yes | **Yes** | Yes |
| DataMapper | Yes | **Yes** | No |
| CouchPotato | **Yes** | No | No |
| MongoMapper | **Yes** | No | No |
| Mongoid | **Yes** | No | No |
| Sequel | **Yes** | Yes | No |
(Default strategy for each library is denoted in bold)
The ActiveRecord @:deletion@ strategy is useful for when the @:truncation@ strategy causes
locks (as reported by some Oracle DB users). The @:deletion@ option has been reported to
be faster than @:truncation@ in some cases as well. In general, the best approach is to use
@:transaction@ since it is the fastest.
Database Cleaner also includes a @null@ strategy (that does no cleaning at all) which can be used
with any ORM library. You can also explicitly use it by setting your strategy to @nil@.
For support or to discuss development please use the "Google Group":http://groups.google.com/group/database_cleaner.
h2. Dependencies
Because database_cleaner supports multiple ORMs, it doesn't make sense to include all the dependencies
for each one in the gemspec. However, the DataMapper adapter does depend on dm-transactions. Therefore,
if you use DataMapper, you must include dm-transactions in your Gemfile/bundle/gemset manually.
h2. How to use
<pre>
require 'database_cleaner'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
# then, whenever you need to clean the DB
DatabaseCleaner.clean
</pre>
With the :truncation strategy you can also pass in options, for example:
<pre>
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation, {:only => %w[widgets dogs some_other_table]}
</pre>
<pre>
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation, {:except => %w[widgets]}
</pre>
(I should point out the truncation strategy will never truncate your schema_migrations table.)
Some strategies require that you call DatabaseCleaner.start before calling clean
(for example the :transaction one needs to know to open up a transaction). So
you would have:
<pre>
require 'database_cleaner'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
DatabaseCleaner.start # usually this is called in setup of a test
dirty_the_db
DatabaseCleaner.clean # cleanup of the test
</pre>
At times you may want to do a single clean with one strategy. For example, you may want
to start the process by truncating all the tables, but then use the faster transaction
strategy the remaining time. To accomplish this you can say:
<pre>
require 'database_cleaner'
DatabaseCleaner.clean_with :truncation
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
# then make the DatabaseCleaner.start and DatabaseCleaner.clean calls appropriately
</pre>
h3. Minitest Example
<pre>
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
class MiniTest::Spec
before :each do
DatabaseCleaner.start
end
after :each do
DatabaseCleaner.clean
end
end
</pre>
h3. RSpec Example
<pre>
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.before(:suite) do
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
end
config.before(:each) do
DatabaseCleaner.start
end
config.after(:each) do
DatabaseCleaner.clean
end
end
</pre>
h3. Cucumber Example
Add this to your features/support/env.rb file:
<pre>
begin
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'database_cleaner/cucumber'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
rescue NameError
raise "You need to add database_cleaner to your Gemfile (in the :test group) if you wish to use it."
end
</pre>
A good idea is to create the before and after hooks to use the DatabaseCleaner.start and DatabaseCleaner.clean methods.
Inside features/support/hooks.rb:
<pre>
Before do
DatabaseCleaner.start
end
After do |scenario|
DatabaseCleaner.clean
end
</pre>
This should cover the basics of tear down between scenarios and keeping your database clean.
For more examples see the section "Why?"
h2. How to use with multiple ORM's
Sometimes you need to use multiple ORMs in your application. You can use DatabaseCleaner to clean multiple ORMs, and multiple connections for those ORMs.
<pre>
#How to specify particular orms
DatabaseCleaner[:active_record].strategy = :transaction
DatabaseCleaner[:mongo_mapper].strategy = :truncation
#How to specify particular connections
DatabaseCleaner[:active_record,{:connection => :two}]
</pre>
Usage beyond that remains the same with DatabaseCleaner.start calling any setup on the different configured connections, and DatabaseCleaner.clean executing afterwards.
Configuration options
|_. ORM |_. How to access |_. Notes |
| Active Record | DatabaseCleaner[:active_record] | Connection specified as :symbol keys, loaded from config/database.yml |
| Data Mapper | DatabaseCleaner[:data_mapper] | Connection specified as :symbol keys, loaded via Datamapper repositories |
| Mongo Mapper | DatabaseCleaner[:mongo_mapper] | Multiple connections not yet supported |
| Mongoid | DatabaseCleaner[:mongoid] | Multiple connections not yet supported |
| Couch Potato | DatabaseCleaner[:couch_potato] | Multiple connections not yet supported |
| Sequel | DatabaseCleaner[:sequel] | ? |
h2. Why?
One of my motivations for writing this library was to have an easy way to
turn on what Rails calls "transactional_fixtures" in my non-rails
ActiveRecord projects. For example, Cucumber ships with a Rails world that
will wrap each scenario in a transaction. This is great, but what if you are
using ActiveRecord in a non-rails project? You used to have to copy-and-paste
the needed code, but with DatabaseCleaner you can now say:
<pre>
#env.rb
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'database_cleaner/cucumber'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
</pre>
Now lets say you are running your features and it requires that another process be
involved (i.e. Selenium running against your app's server.) You can simply change
your strategy type:
<pre>
#env.rb
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'database_cleaner/cucumber'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
</pre>
You can have the best of both worlds and use the best one for the job:
<pre>
#env.rb
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'database_cleaner/cucumber'
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = (ENV['SELENIUM'] == 'true') ? :truncation : :transaction
</pre>
h2. Common Errors
h4. DatabaseCleaner is trying to use the wrong ORM
DatabaseCleaner has an autodetect mechanism where if you do not explicitly define your ORM it will use the first ORM it can detect that is loaded. Since ActiveRecord is the most common ORM used that is the first one checked for. Sometimes other libraries (e.g. ActiveAdmin) will load other ORMs (e.g. ActiveRecord) even though you are using a different ORM. This will result in DatabaseCleaner trying to use the wrong ORM (e.g. ActiveRecord) unless you explicitly define your ORM like so:
<pre>
# How to setup your ORM explicitly
DatabaseCleaner[:mongoid].strategy = :truncation
</pre>
h4. STDERR is being flooded when using Postgres
If you are using Postgres and have foreign key constraints, the truncation strategy will cause a lot of extra noise to appear on STDERR (in
the form of "NOTICE truncate cascades" messages). To silence these warnings set the following log level in your postgresql.conf file:
<pre>
client_min_messages = warning
</pre>
h2. Debugging
In rare cases DatabaseCleaner will encounter errors that it will log. By default it uses STDOUT set to the ERROR level but you can configure this to use whatever Logger you desire. Here's an example of using the Rails.logger in env.rb:
<pre>
DatabaseCleaner.logger = Rails.logger
</pre>
h2. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2009 Ben Mabey. See LICENSE for details.