DEV Community

Cover image for Top 5 Best Testing Ruby Gems For Building Ruby on Rails Web Application
Emily Johnson
Emily Johnson

Posted on

Top 5 Best Testing Ruby Gems For Building Ruby on Rails Web Application

Ruby developers can easily find time-saving ready-made solutions with powerful features for fast web application development. One can achieve this most rapid development using ruby gems that are a useful tool and many libraries with specific functionalities that allow them to build extensive ruby applications.

Ruby on Rails provides advanced solutions for different functionalities, and for this, there are specific ruby gems available for free. For example, you can directly get ruby gems for each function like authentication, authorisation or testing if you want to use it in your ruby app.

In this article, I have listed some ruby gems that you can frequently use in your Ruby on Rails projects.

Without the quality of code, any RoR application does not deliver good results. Testing allows you to maintain the quality of code evaluation of expected results. If you are working upon the Ruby project, following Ruby Gems will save your time.

1. Rspec

Testing tool use for Ruby code. Rspec is used for behavior-driven development (BDD) and test-driven development (TDD) environment. It features neat and descriptive syntax and a perfect choice for the unit test cases for RoR projects.

2. Factory_girl

It's a software library for testing data having straightforward definition syntax. You don't need to enter data every time for testing as it lets you create a factory for modules. Factory_girl library supports multiple build strategies like attribute hashes, stubbed objects, saved instances, and unsaved instances. It also helps numerous factories for the same class, such as admin_user, user, and many more, including factory inheritance.

3. Capybara

This Acceptance test framework is used with a web-based driver having a user-friendly DSL certificate. Capybara Ruby Gem conducts integrated tests that automatically emulate users' movements in a browser. Capybara runs a combination with RSpec and describes the debugging model in very few lines. You can test click-throughs, items available on the home page (enter login and password, button click for login), various form entities (dropbox, checkbox, entry fields). It also suggests multiple favorable methods for debugging.

4. Shoulda-matchers

shoulda-matchers, the latest version is 4.4.1, released on August 26, 2020. It lets us effectively test average Rails usefulness, such as validations and associations, by composing reduced one-line tests viable with RSpec. As such, shoulda-matchers offer matchers that help designers test fundamental Rails' usefulness rapidly and without any problem.

5. Simplecov

SimpleCov is a code analytical tool for Ruby and used for unit testing. However, it utilizes Ruby's underlying Coverage library to assemble code inclusion information, making preparing its outcomes a lot simpler. By giving a perfect API to channel, gathering, consolidation, organization, and show those outcomes, giving you a complete code inclusion suite that can be set up with only two or three lines of code.

Wrapping up:

There are numbers of ruby gems, and of course, every gem has their own advantage, but I have shortlisted some of the best gems for building ruby on rails web application. And, to make a successful ruby on rails web application, you need a dedicated team of developers by a Ruby on rails development company that can help you guide you through the project and provide you with the best solution.

Top comments (2)

Collapse
 
jdickey profile image
Jeff Dickey

This was an interesting list; I would have said "a great list for circa 2010 Rails development". Most of these are still around, but the projects I've seen and/or worked on in the last few years that had previously used them have largely either already left or are evaluating what it would take to do so. This isn't meant to be a diag against you, reall, especially if the projects you've been working on are older code.. For example:

  1. factory_girl isn't even factory_girl anymore, as your link shows; it's factory_bot instead. It's had it's ups and downs, but if you still prefer its style of doing things after looking at alternatives (there's a lot to like in fabrication, among others), go for it. There is no One Right Tool for every team, but a team that blindly follows earlier practice is guilty of cargo culting.
  2. Does anybody use shoulda-matchers on greenfield projects in 2020? We left it because it didn't seem to fit in well with recent consensus on best practices, like RSpec/Minitest::Spec descriptive ("narrative") specs. If you're still using TestUnit or Minitest::Unit then, again, go for it; that style of procedural specification of tests appears to be Shoulda's sweet spot. The rest of us get the feeling that we shoulda used something else.
  3. Simplecov is great at what it does, but know its limitations. It provides line coverage, not statement or branch coveragee. Other languages have had higher-order coverage tools for decades now, and I understand that they're rare in the dynamic-language world, but there is a crying need — which is not mitigated by people having no clue what they're missing.

Just my thoughts after using most of these. I'm guessing that you may be working with older codebases, or that you're relatively new to Ruby. In either case, I apologise for sounding a bit harsh; in the second, welcome to RUby! Many of us have learned the hard way that writing about what we love is a great way to improve our knowledge...even if that means having to put up with the occasional Old Phart who grumps all over your writing. Do please continue!

Collapse
 
emilyjo84160559 profile image
Emily Johnson

Yes Not all applications are up-to-date with the recent codebase so we have to use still some old gems. Either in any case depending upon requirement and version one can use these gems. :)