Laravel 5.5 phpunit testing form validation - php

Question

I'm trying to write some tests for my forms in order to confirm the validators retrieve the expected errors when required.
The form only has 3 fields: name, discount and expiration and the validator looks like this:
$this->validate($request, [
'name' => 'required',
'discount' => 'required|numeric|between:1,100',
'expiration' => 'required|date_format:d/m/Y',
]);
That works fine both when submitting the form and when running the tests with phpunit using the following code:
/**
* Discount must be numeric check
*/
$response = $this->post(route('offer.create'), [
'name' => $faker->sentence(4),
'discount' => 'asdasd',
'expiration' => $faker->dateTimeBetween('+1 days', '+5 months')
]);
// Check errors returned
$response->assertSessionHasErrors(['discount']);
Since discount is not numeric it throws the expected error and everybody is happy.
Now, if I want to add a new rule to make sure that the expiration is equal or greater to today I add the after:yesterdayrule leaving the validator like:
$this->validate($request, [
'name' => 'required',
'discount' => 'required|numeric|between:1,100',
'expiration' => 'required|date_format:d/m/Y|after:yesterday',
]);
That works fine when submitting the form. I get the error saying the discount is not numeric, but when testing with phpunit it doesn't get the error as expected:
1) Tests\Feature\CreateSpecialOfferTest::testCreateSpecialOffer
Session missing error: expiration
Failed asserting that false is true.
Why adding this new validation rule to expirationgenerates a false validation in discount? Is this a bug in the validator or am I missing something?
Also:
1 - is there a better way to test form validators?
2 - is there an assert that is the opposite of assertSessionHasErrors() to check a certain error is NOT been thrown?

Answer 1

If you see this kind of errors in PHPUnit: Failed asserting that false is true., you can add the 'disableExceptionHandling' function to tests/TestCase.php:
<?php
namespace Tests;
use Exception;
use App\Exceptions\Handler;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Debug\ExceptionHandler;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase as BaseTestCase;
abstract class TestCase extends BaseTestCase
{
use CreatesApplication;
protected function disableExceptionHandling()
{
// Disable Laravel's default exception handling
// and allow exceptions to bubble up the stack
$this->app->instance(ExceptionHandler::class, new class extends Handler {
public function __construct() {}
public function report(Exception $exception) {}
public function render($request, Exception $exception)
{
throw $exception;
}
});
}
}
In your test you call it like this:
<?php
/** #test */
public function your_test_function()
{
$this->disableExceptionHandling();
}
Now, the full output of the error and stacktrace will be shown in the PHPUnit console.