here’s a solution based on pypy’s library code (thanks to agf’s suggestion in the comments). the state is available via the .state attribute and can be reset via .goto(state) where state is an index into the sequence (starting at 0). there’s a demo at the end (you need to scroll down, i’m afraid). this is … Read more
Updating since these answers are slightly outdated (although some still apply). Simple feature added in rails 2.3.4, db/seeds.rb Provides a new rake task rake db:seed Good for populating common static records like states, countries, etc… http://railscasts.com/episodes/179-seed-data *Note that you can use fixtures if you had already created them to also populate with the db:seed task … Read more
The db:seed rake task primarily just loads the db/seeds.rb script. Therefore just execute that file to load the data. load “#{Rails.root}/db/seeds.rb” # or Rails.application.load_seed Where to place that depends on what testing framework you are using and whether you want it to be loaded before every test or just once at the beginning. You could … Read more
If you’re giving the same seed, that’s normal. That’s an important feature allowing tests. Check this to understand pseudo random generation and seeds: Pseudorandom number generator A pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), also known as a deterministic random bit generator DRBG, is an algorithm for generating a sequence of numbers that approximates the properties of random … Read more
One option is http://davidbau.com/seedrandom which is a seedable RC4-based Math.random() drop-in replacement with nice properties.