title: Rspec testing against data from an external database
body: <p>I'm currently creating rspec test cases for a Rails 2.3 application. The problem I'm confronting is that the application has a dependency on data from an external database like this: </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>Main_User is an external application. </p></li>
  <li><p>Node_User is the application I'm testing. </p></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>When a new Node_User is created, Node_User calls Main_User which creates a user and returns with some data which Node_User uses to create a the Node_User.</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way I can query the Main_User database to verify that the record created there contains the data that is passed to Node_User? Or is there a better way to test this?</p>
  
  <p>Thank you!</p>