Rails 3 CSV upload and tested with Capybara

03 May 12

I was writing yesterday about how to write and test a CSV export in Rails 3.

Now let see the other side of the scope, where we would like to import a CSV file that will change our data structure.

Let says we have

Author
  * email
  * first_name
  * last_name
  * bio

We want to create a CSV updload that will update a couple email – first_name/last_name/bio.

Well, let’s write our acceptance test first

require 'acceptance/acceptance_helper'

  feature "Uploading a CSV file" do

    background do
      @post = FactoryGirl.create(:author, 
                                 :email => "[email protected]",
                                 :first_name => "nicholas",
                                 :last_name => "Alpi",
                                 :bio => "")
    end

    scenario "update the couple id-first_name/last_name/bio" do
      require 'csv'
      visit new_upload_url

      file_path = Rails.root + "spec/fixtures/upload.csv"
      attach_file('file', file_path)
      click_button "Upload"

      @post.reload

      @post.email.should equal("[email protected]")
      @post.first_name.should equal("nicolas")
      @post.name.should equal("Alpi")
      @post.bio.should equal("Sincerely believes sheep will dominate the world one day.")
    end

    scenario "File missing on upload" do
      visit new_upload_url
      click_button "Upload"
      page.should have_content('File Missing')
    end

  end

Create a file in your spec/fixtures/upload.csv containing

Email, First Name, Last Name, Bio
nicolas@wealsodocookies.com, nicolas, Alpi, Sincerely believes sheep will dominate the world one day.

And we now have a simple test simulating the CSV upload. What’s next is the easy part, we can do to our upload method in Author controller

def upload    
    require 'csv'

    if params[:file].blank?
      flash[:notice] = "File missing"
      redirect_to upload_path
    else
      file = params[:file].read

      CSV.parse(file, headers: true, header_converters: :symbol).each do |row|
          email, first_name, last_name, bio = row[0], row[1], row[2], row[3]
          Author.update_all("first_name = '#{first_name}', last_name = '#{last_name}', bio = '#{bio}'", "email = '#{email}'")
      end
      redirect_to new_upload_url, :notice => "Upload successful"
    end
  end

And voila, we should have our test passing now.

Nicolas Alpi

Technical Director

Occasional hiker and sheep enthusiast who loves playing and exploring with his kids.

Nicolas Alpi

It all starts with a chat