If you need/want to run tests for methods that use serialized attributes then you should brush up a bit about Ruby & YAML.
Keep in mind that rake test_units will serialze the data for you as it puts it in your test database, and write it accordingly. Here is an example record:
Blog:
id: 1
name: Blog
queries:
recent:
cond: "[\"publish=1 AND published_at < ?\",Time.now]"
sort: "published_at DESC"
draft:
cond: "publish=0"
sort: "created_at DESC"
stale_drafts:
cond: "publish=0"
sort: "created_at ASC"
would turn the ‘queries’ column into a hash like so:
{'recent' => {'cond' => "[\"publish=1 AND published_at < ?\",Time.now]", 'sort' => "published_at DESC" },
'draft' => { 'cond' => "", 'sort' => "created_at DESC" },
'stale_drafts' => { 'cond' => "publish=0", 'sort' => "created_at ASC" } }