Use file_fixture to access test files in Rails 5

While writing tests sometimes we need to read files to compare the output. For example a test might want to compare the API response with pre determined data stored in a file.

Here is an example.

# In test helper
def file_data(name)
  File.read(Rails.root.to_s + "/tests/support/files/#{name}")
end

# In test
class PostsControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
  setup do
    @post = posts(:one)
  end

  test "should get index" do
    get posts_url, format: :json

    assert_equal file_data('posts.json'), response.body
  end
end

In Rails 5, we can now organize such test files as fixtures.

Newly generated Rails 5 applications, will have directory test/fixtures/files to store such test files.

These test files can be accessed using file_fixture helper method in tests.

require 'test_helper'

class PostsControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
  setup do
    @post = posts(:one)
  end

  test "should get index" do
    get posts_url, format: :json

    assert_equal response.body, file_fixture('posts.json').read
  end
end

The file_fixture method returns Pathname object, so it's easy to extract file specific information.

file_fixture('posts.json').read
file_fixture('song.mp3').size