[Rails] *dont* empty the database...?

[Alex Young]

Alan Bullock wrote:
> I'd like to test against a very large dataset - is there anyway to prevent 
> the data in the test database being destroyed on each test run? storing the 
> dataset in fixtures causes the tests to take several minutes to complete, 
> even using csv fixtures, and that's just for one test case!
> 
> I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to preserve the data in the test database
> between test runs
Which DB are you using?  If it's got a nice self-contained file-based 
store (like sqlite) you could stop the DB and swap the test data in from 
a backup each test run.  That way there's no fixture load overhead, but 
you'd need to customise the rake task if you want it fully automated... 
  There may well be a better way, but for the moment it escapes me.

-- 
Alex