rspec testing has_many :through and after_save

Question

I have an (I think) relatively straightforward has_many :through relationship with a join table:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :user         


        

Answer 1

UPDATED ANSWER ** This passes rspec, without stubbing, running callbacks for save (after_save callback included ), and checks that @thing.followers is not empty before trying to access its elements. (;

describe Thing do
  before :each do
    @user  = User.create(:name => "Fred");
    @thing = Thing.new(:name => 'Foo')
    @user.things << @thing
    @thing.run_callbacks(:save)
  end 

  it "should have created a relationship" do
    @thing.followers.should == [@user]
    puts @thing.followers.inspect
  end 
end
class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_save :some_function
  has_many :user_following_thing_relationships
  has_many :followers, :through => :user_following_thing_relationships, :source => :user

  def some_function
    the_followers = followers
    unless the_followers.empty?
      puts "accessing followers here: the_followers = #{the_followers.inspect}..."
    end
  end
end

ORIGINAL ANSWER **

I was able to get things to work with the after_save callback, so long as I did not reference followers within the body / block of do_stuff. Do you have to reference followers in the real method you are calling from after_save ?

Updated code to stub out callback. Now model can remain as you need it, we show @thing.followers is indeed set as we expected, and we can investigate the functionality of do_stuff / some_function via after_save in a different spec.

I pushed a copy of the code here: https://github.com/kikuchiyo/RspecHasMany

And spec passing thing* code is below:

# thing_spec.rb
require 'spec_helper'

describe Thing do
    before :each do
        Thing.any_instance.stub(:some_function) { puts 'stubbed out...' }
        Thing.any_instance.should_receive(:some_function).once
        @thing = Thing.create(:name => "Foo");
        @user  = User.create(:name => "Fred");
        @user.things << @thing
    end

    it "should have created a relationship" do
        @thing.followers.should == [@user]
        puts @thing.followers.inspect
    end
end
# thing.rb
class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
    after_save :some_function
    has_many :user_following_thing_relationships
    has_many :followers, :through => :user_following_thing_relationships, :source => :user

    def some_function
        # well, lets me do this, but I cannot use @x without breaking the spec...
        @x = followers 
        puts 'testing puts hear shows up in standard output'
        x ||= 1
        puts "testing variable setting and getting here: #{x} == 1\n\t also shows up in standard output"
        begin
            # If no stubbing, this causes rspec to fail...
            puts "accessing followers here: @x = #{@x.inspect}..."
        rescue
            puts "and this is but this is never seen."
        end
    end
end