gistfile1.txt

Can I over-ride task :environment in test_helper.rb to test rake tasks?

I have a series of rake tasks in a Rakefile which I'd like to test as part of my specs etc. Each task is defined in the form:

    task :do_somthing => :environment do
      # Do something with the database here
    end

Where the :environment task sets up an ActiveRecord/DataMapper database connection and classes. I'm not using this as part of Rails but I have a series of tests which I like to run as part of BDD.

This snippet illustrates how I'm trying to test the rake tasks, using this blog post [1] as an example. 

    def setup
      @rake = Rake::Application.new
      Rake.application = @rake
      load File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../tasks/do_something.rake'
    end
   
    should "import data" do
      @rake["do_something"].invoke
      assert something_in_the_database
    end

So my request for help - is it possible to over-ride the :environment task in my test_helper.rb file so I my rake testing interacts with the my test database, rather than production? I've tried redefining the task in the helper file, but this doesn't work.

This further blog post [2] has provided some inspiration, but I'm still not getting the desired behaviour. Any help for a solution would be great, as I've been stuck on this for the past week.

[1] http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2007/06/11/test-your-rake-tasks
[2] http://www.dcmanges.com/blog/modifying-rake-tasks