Integration tests for dependent: :????? associations

[patmbolger]

Add rspec integration tests for all such associations that lack them. (that is, add tests that destroy primary object and confirm that the secondary object is managed as intended by the association statement.

That is, the secondary object is destroyed if the association specifies destroy, or primary ID's are nullified if the association specifies nullify, etc.

[Erika-Barr]

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html#method-i-has_many

The has_many's defined destroy method will only destroy the join records, when used along with the :through option, not the owned objects themselves. If the owned objects must be destroyed, could something like this be valid? For associations with :through and :dependent :destroy e.g.

In models/agency_people.rb
before_destroy :dependent_destroy_through
has_many :job_seekers, through: :agency_relations, dependent: :destroy
private
def dependent_destroy_through
  self.job_seekers.map(&:destroy)
end

Then integration tests such as

agency_person.destroy
expect(JobSeeker.all).not_to include(job_seeker)

will pass. Both the join records and owned objects will be destroyed

[patmbolger]

Yes, your code would work if we wanted to destroy any associated job seekers when an agency person is destroyed. However, we do not want to do that. The standard logic of just destroying the record(s) from the join table is what we want here.

[Erika-Barr]

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the clear up