Rails, Logger, and those pesky Tests

First of all, I would like to thank all of you who took a moment to gather around the campfire with me and share your stuff. That was much appreciated.

So, I started playing with the idea of logging in unit and functional tests and I quickly realized that calling logger.info wasn’t an option. What’s the deal-e-o? Before I gather up my posse and conspire a train hijacking, I decided that I would see how quickly I could solve my problem before I called you all out to the Rio Rails Grande for an old-fashioned shoot out. Ya know, the kind that results in a Bon Jovi song and a little blood.

You’re all in luck because:

• A) my holster was eaten by my dog
  and
• B) I found a quick solution to clean up this logger situation.

Okay… are you ready?

I know… this is totally groundbreaking!!!

Open up test/test_helper.rb and add the method… logger.

# other stuff at the top of the file... just 
# look down below at def logger
class Test::Unit::TestCase
  self.use_transactional_fixtures = true
  self.use_instantiated_fixtures  = false

  # here... look here! right below this
  def logger
    RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER
  end
end

Save that and pick up your pistol…

The next step is to call the logger method in your unit and functional tests.

def test_the_obvious
  logger.info( 'asserting that 1 is 1' )
  assert 1, 1
end

I posted this on Rails Weenie as well.