Hey all,

I'm following along with AWDWR, specifically the unit testing.
On page 148, it shows you how Test::Unit::TestCase will automatically  
define instance variables based on your fixtures.

It doesn't seem to actually work, though. It seems that both @artists 
["beatles"]["name"] and @beatles.name are nil objects in my test,  
where as artists(:beatles).name works ok.

What is the right way of doing it? I'd guess the one that actually  
works is right, but there's a lot of stuff on google about the other  
ways that I can't get to work.


The actual error messages for the failed assertions are different:

@artists["beatles"]["name"]:

test_create(ArtistTest):
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.name
     test/unit/artist_test.rb:15:in `test_create'

@beatles.name:

test_create(ArtistTest):
NoMethodError: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occured while evaluating nil.[]
     test/unit/artist_test.rb:14:in `test_create'


test/fixtures/artists.yml:

beatles:
   id: 1
   name: The Beatles


test/unit/artist_test.rb:

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../test_helper'

class ArtistTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     fixtures :artists

     def setup
         @artist = Artist.find(1)
     end

     def test_create
         assert_equal @artists["beatles"]["name"], @artist.name    #  
fails
         assert_equal @beatles.name, @artist.name                  #  
fails
         assert_equal artists(:beatles).name, @artist.name         #  
works
     end
end