How to set a value to $_SERVER['var'] on a functional testing? - php

Question

I have an action to make an 'autologin' based in a id that the system gets from $_SERVER['AUTH_USER']. In my business server that value is always set for authenticated user. Now, I am trying test my autologin (and so many other things that depends the autologin to work) so I need to set some user to that global (just a string).
What I tryed
$_SERVER['AUTH_USER'] = 'someUser';
$I->amOnPage('some-route'); // this page redirects to autologin action where $_SERVER is used to get the user logged.
But when the action autologin is loaded that value is no more inside $_SERVER global and my test crashes.
What I would like to know
Where or how I can set that global value so that my page could behave normally, reading the value and just going on.
I will appreciate any help.
Thank you.

Answer 1

It looks like lack of proper abstraction. You should avoid accessing $_SERVER['AUTH_USER'] directly in your app and do it in at most in one place - in component which will provide abstraction for this. So you should probably extend yii\web\Request and add related method for $_SERVER['AUTH_USER'] abstraction:
class MyRequest extends \yii\web\Request {
private $_myAuthUser;
public function getMyAuthUser() {
if ($this->_myAuthUser === null) {
$this->_myAuthUser = $_SERVER['AUTH_USER'];
}
return $this->_myAuthUser;
}
public function setMyAuthUser($value) {
$this->_myAuthUser = $value;
}
}
Use new class in your config:
return [
'id' => 'app-web',
// ...
'components' => [
'request' => [
'class' => MyRequest::class,
],
// ...
],
];
And use abstraction in your action:
$authUser = explode('\\', Yii::$app->request->getMyAuthUser())[0];
In your tests you can set value using setter in MyRequest:
Yii::$app->request->setMyAuthUser('domain\x12345');
Or configure this at config level:
return [
'id' => 'app-test',
// ...
'components' => [
'request' => [
'class' => MyRequest::class,
'myAuthUser' => 'domain\x12345',
],
// ...
],
];
UPDATE:
According to slinstj comments, Codeception may loose state of request component, including myAuthUser value. In that case it may be a good idea to implement getMyAuthUser() and setMyAuthUser() on different component (for example Yii::$app->user) or create separate component for that:
return [
'id' => 'app-web',
// ...
'components' => [
'authRequest' => [
'class' => MyRequest::class,
],
// ...
],
];

Answer 2

For now, I am using a workaround because there is only one place where that variable value it is checked:
//Inside my action autologin:
$authUser = explode('\\', ($_SERVER['AUTH_USER'] ?? (YII_ENV_TEST ? 'domain\x12345' : 'domain\xInvalid')))[1];
The only relevant point here is YII_ENV_TEST that is true when testing. Using this I can set get an specific value that is enough to that simple test.
However I hope to see any other better idea here!
Thanks.