Rails: testing a class method with FactoryGirl when fixtures are present

Question

I'd like to test a class method for the following model:

class Subscription < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...

  self.active_within_timeframe(t1, t2)
    # method code
  end
end

Here are the factories:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :subscription do
    user_id 1

    factory :s1 do
      beginning 3.days.ago
      ending    2.days.ago
    end

    factory :s2 do
      beginning 1.day.ago
      ending    nil
    end
  end
end

In my application I also have fixtures for subscriptions. How can I run tests only against records created by FactoryGirl?

Is there a way to fill out the missing part in the test below?

class UserTest < ActiveSupport::TestCase

  test "should find records for the given time frame" do
    s1 = FactoryGirl.create(:s1)
    s2 = FactoryGirl.create(:s2)

    # Create an object (of e.g. ActiveRecord::Relation class) containing
    # factories s1 and s2, and nothing from fixtures
    # subscriptions = ...
    records = subscriptions.active_within_timeframe(2.5.days.ago, 0.5.days.ago)

    assert records.order('id desc') == [s1, s2].order('id desc')
  end
end

Answer 1

I'd say use fixtures or don't. Don't mix it. You could just add your s1 and s2 to the fixtures. Otherwise just, don't load fixtures and use factories throughout your tests. I use fixtures only to populate the DB in my development env and factories in testing. See this article on the topic. Also for performance reasons, you should consider to use non-persisted (or even stubbed) objects where possbile, which is another advantage of factories over fixtures in testing.

Aside from the testing matter, I think you should use a scope instead of a class method