fake.rake - a takeout approach and rake task that generates some random fake data for a rails app (using ffaker)

fakeout.rb

# place this in lib/fakeout.rb

require 'ffaker'

module Fakeout
  class Builder

    FAKEABLE = %w(User Product)

    attr_accessor :report

    def initialize
      self.report = Reporter.new
      clean!
    end

    # create users (can be admins)
    def users(count = 1, options = {}, is_admin = false)
      1.upto(count) do 
        user = User.new({ :email                 => random_unique_email, 
                          :password              => 'Testpass', 
                          :password_confirmation => 'Testpass' }.merge(options))
        user.save
        if is_admin
          user.update_attribute(:is_admin, true)
          self.report.increment(:admins, 1)
        end
      end

      self.report.increment(:users, count)
    end

    # create products (can be free)
    def products(count = 1, options = {})
      1.upto(count) do
        attributes   = { :name        => Faker::Company.catch_phrase, 
                         :price       => 20+Random.rand(11), 
                         :description => Faker::Lorem.paragraph(2) }.merge(options)
        product      = Product.new(attributes)
        product.name = "Free #{product.name}" if product.free?
        product.save
      end
      self.report.increment(:products, count)
    end

    # cleans all faked data away
    def clean!
      FAKEABLE.map(&:constantize).map(&:destroy_all)
    end


    private

    def pick_random(model)
      ids = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.select_all("SELECT id FROM #{model.to_s.tableize}")
      model.find(ids[rand(ids.length)]['id'].to_i) if ids
    end

    def random_unique_email
      Faker::Internet.email.gsub('@', "+#{User.count}@")
    end
  end


  class Reporter < Hash
    def initialize
      super(0)
    end

    def increment(fakeable, number = 1)
      self[fakeable.to_sym] ||= 0
      self[fakeable.to_sym] += number
    end

    def to_s
      report = ""
      each do |fakeable, count|
        report << "#{fakeable.to_s.classify.pluralize} (#{count})\n" if count > 0
      end
      report
    end
  end
end


# Now the rake task
# place this in lib/tasks/fake.rake

require 'fakeout'

desc "Fakeout data"
task :fake => :environment do
  faker = Fakeout::Builder.new

  # fake users
  faker.users(9)
  faker.users(1, { :email => 'matt@test.com' }, true)

  # fake products
  faker.products(12)
  faker.products(4, { :price => 0 })

  # report
  puts "Faked!\n#{faker.report}"
end

Thanks for creating this, it inspired me to add further flexibility - https://gist.github.com/rmcsharry/595bc130194087ff41135da9799b90ae