This year I have decided to try and read through the unread books on my bookshelves. I will be maintaining the list here.

If you are using Factory Girl, then you may be wondering how to define the factories for those has_many :through associations you have.

Models

The example models we will use are:

class BeeKeeper < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bees
  has_many :hives, :through => :bees
end

class Hive < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bees
  has_many :bee_keepers, :through => :bees
end

class Bee < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :bee_keeper
  belongs_to :hive
end

Factories for Testing

So, to test these relationships you would define Factories. Let's start by specifying the belongs_tos

Factory.define :bee do |b|
  b.bee_keeper {|a| a.association(:bee_keeper)}
  b.hive {|a| a.association(:hive)}
end

Factory.define :bee_keeper do |bk|
end

Factory.define :hive do |h|
end

By creating a bee, it should also create a beekeeper and a hive.

We're Done!

Actually, this is all you need to do for has_many :through - when you add hives to bee_keepers, they will automatically create the bees!

context "Bee Keepers" do
  setup do
    @bee_keeper = Factory(:bee_keeper)
    @bee_keeper.hives << Factory(:hive)
    @bee_keeper.hives << Factory(:hive)
  end

  should "have 2 hives" do
    assert_equal 2, @bee_keeper.hives.length
  end

  should "have 2 bees" do
    assert_equal 2, @bee_keeper.bees.length
  end
end

This will create:

• 1 bee keeper
• 2 bees
• 2 hives

Hope this helps some of you.

I have just turned on mod_rails on Dreamhost. Let's see how it goes.

My lack of posting here is because I have been spending time elsewhere. You can find me at the following hang outs:

• Twitter - I tweet pretty much every day.
• Flickr - I post photos here at least once a week, usually more.
• Upcoming - You can see what I'm up to or interested in going to.
• Google Reader Shared - funny or interesting stuff I find in my RSS feeds.
• Delicious - Any links which don't come from RSS feeds.
• Github - It's where the cool kids keep their code these days.
• Lighthouse - Issue tracking, seeing use now because they now accommodate open source projects for free.
• Dopplr - Where am I?
• LinkedIn - Only vaguely using this. Just barely more useful than Facebook.
• Facebook - I removed my account over a year ago, due to the pointlessness of it. Don't try to contact me there.

Hayfever is back with our first stint of summer weather.

In order to give us some warning, I have created a twitter bot which tweets daily based on information found at the BBC website. It currently reports on London only.

• pollen_london - Twitter account
• Github - Source code is open source
• Lighthouse - Please report bugs