Shoulda superclass mismatch on unit tests

Question

Trying to write a simple unit test using shoulda and rails 3.

test/unit/user_test.rb

class UserTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
  should validate_presence_of(:password, :on => :create)
  should validate_presence_of(:handle, :email)
  should validate_confirmation_of(:password)
  should validate_length_of(:handle, :within => 6..15)
  should validate_uniqueness_of(:handle)
  should validate_format_of(:handle, :with => /\A\w+\z/i)
  should validate_length_of(:email, :within => 6..100)
end

Relevant parts of Gemfile

group :test do
  gem 'shoulda'
  gem 'rspec-rails', '2.0.0.beta.12'
end

When I try to run this using rake test --trace I receive the following error:

** Execute test:units
/Users/removed/removed/removed/app_name/test/unit/user_test.rb:5: superclass mismatch for class UserTest (TypeError)
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.7/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:239:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.7/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:239:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.7/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:227:in `load_dependency'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.7/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:239:in `require'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb:9
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb:9:in `each'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb:9
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb:5:in `each'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2/lib/rake/rake_test_loader.rb:5

I understand the error, I just don't get where another UserTest class would be defined that's giving me this issue. Any thoughts?

Mike

What does `find . | xargs grep -l UserTest` return? Run it from your project's root. — s.m., Jun 27 '11 at 18:44
Wow I'm an idiot - turns out I had copied the code from this unit test into another unit test hence defining UserTest twice. Thanks very much! — Mike Sukmanowsky, Jun 27 '11 at 20:20

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 27 '11 at 20:35

5

Check the output of find . | xargs grep -l UserTest against accidental duplicated uses of the class name.

answered Jun 27 '11 at 20:35

s.m.

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1

You may want to add a `-name '*.rb'` to your `find` – Jared Beck Apr 23 '13 at 20:10

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '11 at 23:44

The only way I could imagine avoiding this mistake is by doing the following:

UserTest = Class.new(Test::Unit::TestCase)
class UserTest # Or class UserTest < Test::Unit::TestCase is also allowed
  should validate_presence_of(:password, :on => :create)
  should validate_presence_of(:handle, :email)
  should validate_confirmation_of(:password)
  should validate_length_of(:handle, :within => 6..15)
  should validate_uniqueness_of(:handle)
  should validate_format_of(:handle, :with => /\A\w+\z/i)
  should validate_length_of(:email, :within => 6..100)
end

if you were to repeat

UserTest = Class.new(Test::Unit::TestCase) # repeated

you'd get

warning: already initialized constant UserTest

But this approach would look a little weird.

Yeah - it would work but it's overkill to a more subtle problem: stupid programming. I'm working on a fix for that, but haven't gotten it right yet. :) — Mike Sukmanowsky, Jun 28 '11 at 01:41

Shoulda superclass mismatch on unit tests

2 Answers2