FactoyGirl: before(:create) actions not being recognized

Question

I am attempting to create my FactoryGirl factories such that when I call FactoryGirl.create(:model_a), any dependency for model_a are created and assigned to that model_a factory. However, for some reason my method is not working and I can't quite figure out why.

In my factory file this is what I have:

FactoryGirl.define do
    factory :model_a do
        before(:create) do
            FactoryGirl.create(:model_b)
        end

        model_b {ModelB.first}
    end
end

Now when I run FactoryGirl.create(:model_a) I would expect this to first create the factory model_b (because of the before(:create) call) and then go back to creating the factory model_a and assigning the factory model_b to the model_b relationshionship for model_a

But instead, I am getting the error model_b must exist, model_b cannot be blank.

Why is the factory model_b not being created so that I can use it?

Answer 1

You need to set the association between model_a and model_b inside your before(:create) block. For example:

FactoryGirl.define do
  factory :model_a do
    # add model_a attributes as needed

    before(:create) do |model_a|
      model_a.model_b = ModelB.first || FactoryGirl.create(:model_b)
    end
  end
end

Or, per OP's comment:

factory :model_a do
  # add model_a attributes as needed
  model_b { ModelB.first || FactoryGirl.create(:model_b) }
end