Rails 3.2.13 + Faker + Devise + Rolify

Question

I'm building a test app and came across a problem with Faker gem:

I've created Use model with Devise and used Rolify gem to create roles and then later on will use CanCan to limit user's usage permissions.

So, with Faker I've created a file for my rake task:

namespace :db do

  desc "Fill dummy DB"

  task :populate => :environment do

    require "populator"

    require "faker"

    password = "password"

    User.populate 198 do |user|
      user.firstname = Faker::Name.first_name
      user.lastname = Faker::Name.last_name
      user.email = Faker::Internet.email
      user.encrypted_password = User.new(:password => password).encrypted_password
      user.phone   = Faker::PhoneNumber.phone_number
      user.address1  = Faker::Address.street_address
      user.city    = Faker::Address.city
      user.state   = Faker::Address.state_abbr
      user.zip     = Faker::Address.zip_code
      user.latitude = Faker::Address.latitude
      user.longitude = Faker::Address.longitude
    end

  end
end

This code works and it creates 198 dummy users...but when I looked into my users_roles table - nothing's there, users don't have roles assigned to them. I've been trying to figure out how to assign a role to user through Faker, but no luck.

I've tried adding user.role_id = User.add_role :user , but no luck.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

I discourage you from using populator gem. There are three reasons to that:

1. Populator is no longer maintained, last commit was over two years ago. The official repository still says "Rails 3 support is currently being worked on. Stay tuned." with Rails 4 released over a month ago.
2. It does not have data validation. It is up to you to ensure you’re adding proper data values. And this may end up really messy.
3. It's really easy to make it programatically giving you more control over custom cases and therefore making you a better developer =)

You can construct your database populator with user role adding with code below:

namespace :db do

  desc "Fill dummy DB"

  task :populate => :environment do

    198.times do |n|
      user = User.new(
        firstname: Faker::Name.first_name,
        lastname:  Faker::Name.last_name,
        email:     Faker::Internet.email,
        password:  "password",
        phone:     Faker::PhoneNumber.phone_number,
        address1:  Faker::Address.street_address,
        city:      Faker::Address.city,
        state:     Faker::Address.state_abbr,
        zip:       Faker::Address.zip_code,
        latitude:  Faker::Address.latitude,
        longitude: Faker::Address.longitude )
      user.add_role :user
      user.save
    end
  end
end

Please note as I:

• deleted require statements (at least on my system aren't necessary)
• moved password into a block
• am adding a role using function, not assignment (=) BEFORE saving a user - not possible using populator

Using this construct, you can make more handy things with the User instance, ex. prevent sending a confirmation email when using Devise's :confirmable by invoking user.skip_confirmation! before saving - what you might find useful.

Consider as well generating emails basing on first_name and last_name already generated by Faker before to have user's name and email inline. To achieve that you may replace

Faker::Internet.email

by

"#{user.first_name}.#{user.last_name}#{n+1}@example.com"

taking advantage of block numerator and therefore creating an unique email.