Trouble comparing time with RSpec

Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 4 and the rspec-rails gem 2.14. For a my object I would like to compare the current time with the updated_at object attribute after a c

Answer 1

The easiest way I found around this problem is to create a current_time test helper method like so:

module SpecHelpers
  # Database time rounds to the nearest millisecond, so for comparison its
  # easiest to use this method instead
  def current_time
    Time.zone.now.change(usec: 0)
  end
end

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include SpecHelpers
end

Now the time is always rounded to the nearest millisecond to comparisons are straightforward:

it "updates updated_at attribute" do
  Timecop.freeze(current_time)

  patch :update
  @article.reload
  expect(@article.updated_at).to eq(current_time)
end