Testing

some initial notes

test definition can be written as such
test "that a new user has a valid name" do
  #some test stuff
end

You would use ActiveSupport::TestCase as the parent class of any of your Rails tests.

Inside a Test, you are generally trying to do 4 things:
1) Set up the data.
2) Perform the action that triggers the behavior being tested (i.e. - call to a controller method or call to a model method).
3) Perform one or more assertions to verify that the behavior triggered in the previous step had the expected results.
4) Tear down any data structures that need to be removed before the next test runs. (often handled by Rails).

Test::Unit defines ~20 different methods that assert the presence or absence of a particular state
assert_equal "the expected value", @theActualValue

assert_in_delta(expected, actual, delta)
assert_instance_of(klass, object)
assert_kind_of(klass, object)
assert_match(pattern,string)
assert_no_match(pattern,string)
assert_operator(left,operator,right)
assert_nil(object)
assert_not_nil(object)
assert_raise(*args,&block)
assert_nothing_raised(*args,&block)
assert_same(expected, actual)  - checks actual object equality
assert_not_same(expected, actual)
assert_respond_to(object,method)
assert_send(array)
assert_throws(symbol,&block)
assert_nothing_thrown(&block)