Manually loading fixture data

Rails
1

Hi all,

I’ve got some tables with fixed amounts of data in them (a “states”
table, for example). For tables like this I can easily put all of the
data in the fixture.

For general futzing purposes, and for those times I want to reload a
database from scratch outside of testing (for whatever reason), what’s
the best approach? I thought perhaps ActiveRecord::Base had something
built in to allow me to load a .yml file, but I don’t see it.

I realize I could redefine initialize in ActiveRecord::Base to do
special handling if the argument was a string ending in “.yml” or an IO
object, but I thought I would ask here first.

Regards,

Dan

2

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On Nov 10, 2005, at 1:17 PM, Berger, Daniel wrote:

I’ve got some tables with fixed amounts of data in them (a “states”
table, for example). For tables like this I can easily put all
of the
data in the fixture.

For general futzing purposes, and for those times I want to reload a
database from scratch outside of testing (for whatever reason), what’s
the best approach? I thought perhaps ActiveRecord::Base had something
built in to allow me to load a .yml file, but I don’t see it.

Check out the :load_fixtures Rake task.

I realize I could redefine initialize in ActiveRecord::Base to do
special handling if the argument was a string ending in “.yml” or
an IO
object, but I thought I would ask here first.

Interesting idea…

jeremy
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3

You can probably use “rake load_fixtures” (run rake --tasks for
description) and it will load fixtures into current database (Whatever
your env is set to). However if you have a specific order that you
need to load fixtures due to foreign key constraints etc then you can
use something like the following. I store this in a file
lib\tasks\db.rake annd it deletes the data and reloads the data in the
proper order to ensure no constraints are violated.

desc “Reset Database data to that in fixtures”
task :reset_db_data => :environment do
require ‘active_record/fixtures’
ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(RAILS_ENV.to_sym)

metadata_fixtures = [ :icons, :severities, :types, :statuses,
:resolutions ]
project_fixtures = [ :users, :projects, :components, :versions ]
issue_fixtures = [ :issues, :comments, :issues_affects_versions,
:issues_fixfor_versions, :issues_components ]
fixtures = (metadata_fixtures + project_fixtures +
issue_fixtures).collect {|x| x.to_s }
Fixtures.create_fixtures(‘test/fixtures’, fixtures)
end

HTH,

Peter D.

4

On 11/11/05, Daniel B. [email protected] wrote:

I also realized that ActiveRecord::Base.new does not accept an array of
hashes in the same way ActiveRecord::Base.create does. Is this on purpose?

Thats the documented behaviour so it is intentional but it kinda
surprised me.

5

Peter D. wrote:

You can probably use “rake load_fixtures” (run rake --tasks for
description) and it will load fixtures into current database (Whatever
your env is set to).

Ah, thanks Peter (and Jeremy).

Peter D.

Yes, it does help, thanks. However, for those of you tinkering with
ActiveRecord in standalone fashion, a small diff (against 1.13.0) is
below:

— base.orig Thu Nov 10 14:54:48 2005
+++ base.rb Thu Nov 10 15:39:27 2005
@@ -457,14 +457,19 @@
# Creates an object, instantly saves it as a record (if the
validation
permits it), and returns
it. If the save
# fails under validations, the unsaved object is still returned.
def create(attributes = nil)

  •    if attributes.is_a?(Array)

  •      attributes.collect { |attr| create(attr) }

  •    else

  •      attributes.reverse_merge!(scope(:create)) if scoped?(:create)

  •    case attributes

  •      when Array

  •        attributes.collect { |attr| create(attr) }

  •      when String

  •        YAML.load(File.open(attributes)).values.collect{ |attr|

create(attr) }

  •      when IO

  •        YAML.load(attributes).values.collect{ |attr| create(attr) }

  •      else

  •        attributes.reverse_merge!(scope(:create)) if

scoped?(:create)

  •      object = new(attributes)

  •      object.save

  •      object

  •        object = new(attributes)

  •        object.save

  •        object
    end
  end

I also realized that ActiveRecord::Base.new does not accept an array
of
hashes in the same way ActiveRecord::Base.create does. Is this on
purpose?

Regards,

Dan

6

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On Nov 11, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Daniel B. wrote:

Interestingly, it looks like there’s no corresponding
Fixtures.delete_fixtures method. It’s all or nothing with
Fixtures.delete_existing_fixtures.

Any chance of adding a Fixtures.delete_fixtures method so that I
can delete specific fixtures only?

Certainly – please post an enhancement at http://dev.rubyonrails.com/
newticket
Of course, for most speedy addition, include a patch :slight_smile:

jeremy
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7

Peter D. wrote:

require ‘active_record/fixtures’

HTH,

Peter D.

Interestingly, it looks like there’s no corresponding
Fixtures.delete_fixtures
method. It’s all or nothing with Fixtures.delete_existing_fixtures.

Any chance of adding a Fixtures.delete_fixtures method so that I can
delete
specific fixtures only?

Regards,

Dan