Rails - Jan 2006 - Can somebody explain when to reload an ActiveRecord

Hi all,

I''ve the following test method in my controller_test which increment
the
''qty'' attribute in a has_many association,
''sa_report_products''. The
''item_count'' method returns the sum of all qty''s in
''sa_report_products'':

  def test_add_product_to_report
    sa_rpt = SaReport.find(1)
    assert_equal 3, c = sa_rpt.item_count, ''initial count is
3''
    assert_equal 2, sa_rpt.sa_report_products[0].qty, ''initial qty is
2''
    post :add_item, :id => sa_rpt.id, :new_product_item_id => 1, 
:new_product_item_qty => 3
    sa_rpt.reload  # MUST HAVE THIS TO WORK, WHY??
    assert_equal 2, sa_rpt.sa_report_products.length, ''still have 2
item
lines''
    assert_equal 5, sa_rpt.sa_report_products[0].qty, ''3
added''
    sa_rpt.update
    assert_equal c + 3, sa_rpt.item_count, ''3 added''
  end
end

The test failed if I leave out the "sa_rpt.reload" line, that is 
"sa_rpt.sa_report_products[0].qty" is still 2, not 5.

My problem is I don''t really understand when I needed to reload an 
ActiveRecord, can somebody explain?

Thank
Jack Hung

You generally use the Reload method in your test harnesses. You have set 
sa_rpt to the item with id=1. After the post, the data inside the 
database has changed wrt to id=1. sa_rpt does not re-populate itself 
automatically if the database changes, so you need to do a Reload to get 
the latest data from the database if you want to make use of the new 
data - which you are because you want to run tests against this data.

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