How to post Faker collection in Laravel testing? - php

Question

I have a test case where the user will be allowed to create/post multiple items at once. Please take a look at my test:
/**
* Test multiple item creation.
*
* #return void
*/
public function testMultipleCreation()
{
$token = Test::generateToken();
$user = Test::getAuthenticatedUser();
$stall = factory(Stall::class)->make()->toArray();
$item = factory(Item::class, 5)->make()->toArray();
dump($item);
$user->addStall($stall);
$response = $this->withHeaders(['Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $token]);
$response = $response->json('POST', route('items.store', $item));
$response->assertStatus(200);
// $this->assertDatabaseHas('items', $item);
}
and here is the controller:
/**
* Store a newly created resource in storage.
*
* #param \App\Http\Requests\StoreItem $request
* #return \App\Helpers\ResponseMessage
*/
public function store(StoreItem $request)
{
if (is_array($request)) {
$this->createMultiple($request);
}
$item = auth()->user()->addItem(
$request->validated()
);
return ResponseMessage::created('item', $item);
}
/**
* Create multiple items.
*
* #param array $items
* #return void
*/
protected function createMultiple($items)
{
$itemCollection = [];
foreach ($items as $item) {
$itemCollection[] = auth()->user()->addItem(
$item->validated()
);
}
return ResponseMessage::created('items', $itemCollection);
}
It works fine if I post it as $item = factory(Item::class)->make()->toArray();, but if I make it more than 1 factory item, it fails and throws this error:
1) Tests\Unit\ItemTest::testMultipleCreation
ErrorException: Array to string conversion
ERRORS!
Tests: 9, Assertions: 20, Errors: 1.

Answer 1

Problem is likely here
$response = $response->json('POST', route('items.store', $item));
Since $item is an Array, it doesn't know how to convert it.
Probably you meant
$response = $response->json('POST', route('items.store'), $item);