Maquila

factory_girl inspired library for building JavaScript objects or creating records, useful for setting up test data.

Installation

web: $ bower install maquila

node: $ npm install maquila

Usage

Factory Definitions

You can define a new factory with optional constructor function and default attributes, functions will be evaluated:

  Maquila.define('post', Post).defaults({
    title : function() {
      return "Post " + this.sequence();
    },
    createdAt : function() { return new Date(); },
    content   : function(attrs) { return "Content for " + attrs['title'] },
    author    : "Macario Ortega",
    published : false
  });

Building Objects

Instantiate an object optionally passing attributes to override:

  var post = Maquila.build('post', { author: "Daffy Duck" });

It will return a Post instance with this attributes.

  new Post({
    title: 'Post 1',
    createdAt: Tue Apr 09 2013 20:56:24 GMT-0500 (CDT),
    content: "Content for Post 1",
    author: 'Daffy Duck',
    published: false
  })

Same as:

var post = Maquila.factory('post').build({ author: "Daffy Duck" });

Or return a plain JavaScript computed attributes object:

  var postAttributes = Maquila.attributes('post', { author: "Daffy Duck" });

Strategies

Besides attributes, and build, Maquila defines the create strategy, that calls create on the constructor passing the computed attributes.

  var persistedPost = Maquila.create('post', { author: "Daffy Duck" });

New strategies can be defined or existing ones overriden.

  Maquila.strategy('create', function(Constructor, attrs){
    obj = new Constructor(attrs)
    obj.save
    return obj
  });

  Maquila.strategy('persist', function(Constructor, attrs){
    return Constructor.persist(atts);
  });

  var persistedPost = Maquila.persist('post', { author: "Daffy Duck" });

Strategies can be define or overriden globaly or on a factory basis.

  Maquila.factory('post').strategy('publish', function(Post, attrs){
    return Post.publish(atts);
  });

  var publishedPost = Maquila.publish('post', { author: "Daffy Duck" });

Sequences

You can reset the sequence counter for a given factory:

  > Maquila.build('post').title;
  // => "Post 1"
  > Maquila.build('post').title;
  // => "Post 2"
  > Maquila.factory('post').resetSequence();
  // => Factory
  > Maquila.build('post').title;
  // => "Post 1"

Or for all factories:

Maquila.resetSequences();

Collections

You can build an array of instances or attributes, optionally overriding defaults.

var posts = Maquila.factory('post').arrayOf(3).build({
  author: function() { Maquila.factory('author').build() }
};

var persistedPosts = Maquila.factory('post').arrayOf(3).create();

var attributes = Maquila.factory('post').arrayOf(3).attributes();

Collections will implement strategies defined globally or by factory.

var persistedPosts = Maquila.factory('post').arrayOf(3).persist();

var publishedPosts = Maquila.factory('post').arrayOf(3).publish();

Extending Factories

You can define a factory based on a previous factory definition, overriding some defaults.

  Maquila.define('published-post').extend('post').defaults({
    published: true
  });
  
  > Maquila.build('published-post').published;
  // => true

Extended factories will share a sequence counter, but you can set a new one passing an optional start number.

  Maquila.factory('published-post').setNewCounter(2);