= factory_girl == Defining factories # This will guess the User class Factory.define :user do |u| u.first_name 'John' u.last_name 'Doe' u.admin false end # This will use the User class (Admin would have been guessed) Factory.define :admin, :class => User do |u| u.first_name 'Admin' u.last_name 'User' u.admin true end It is recommended that you create a test/factories.rb file and define your factories there. This file can be included from test_helper or directly from your test files. Don't forget: require 'factory_girl' == Using factories # Build and save a User instance Factory(:user) # Build a User instance and override the first_name property Factory.build(:user, :first_name => 'Joe') # Return an attributes Hash that can be used to build a User instance attrs = Factory.attributes_for(:user)