FactoryGirl—creating variables

Question

I have a project where heaps of factories are like this:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :terms_document do
    created_by { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
    updated_by { FactoryGirl.create(:user) }
    ...
  end
end

How do I create one user at the start that I can use throughout the factory?

Answer 1

You may add a cache method to the factory file:

def user
  @user ||= FactoryGirl.create(:user)
end

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :terms_document do
    created_by user
    updated_by user
    ...
  end
end

Update : In a case you need different users for different factory instances:

def user(term_document)
  @users ||= {}
  @users[term_document] ||= FactoryGirl.create(:user)
end

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :terms_document do
    ...
    after(:build) do |term_document|
      created_by user(term_document)
      updated_by user(term_document)
    end
  end
end