Minimize factories in test? - php

Question

Currently I am using many factories factory() in Test class, is there a way to reduce to 1 so I can only use factory(Something::class) in a test method?
Reason I used many because I have to pass some foreign keys.
$user = factory(User::class)->create();
$token = factory(Token::class)->create([
'user_id' => $user->id,
]);
$provider = factory(Provider::class)->create([
'user_id' => $user->id,
'token_id' => $token->id,
]);
$something = factory(Something::class)->create([
'provider_id' => $provider->id,
]);
// Now test with $something

Answer 1

You can use such syntax:
$factory->define(Something::class, function ($faker) {
return [
'title' => $faker->title,
'content' => $faker->paragraph,
'provider_id' => function () {
return factory(Provider::class)->create()->id;
}
];
});
$factory->define(Provider::class, function ($faker) {
$user = factory(User:class)->create();
return [
'user_id' => $user->id,
'token_id' => function () {
return factory(Token::class)->create(['user_id' => $user->id])->id;
}
];
});
and then in your tests you can only use:
$something = factory(Something::class)->create();
Be aware depending on your needs it can cause some side effects - for example when using Provider factory, user will be always created what might be fine or not depending on your tests. Of course if needed you can always created helper method that will wrap all those methods you showed and return only something and then in your test you can only use:
$something = $this->createSomething();