Laravel 5 Unit Test - Call to a member function connection() on null - php

Question

I tried creating a unit test for the relationships between my User and Shop models, however when I run vendor\\bin\\phpunit this error(s) are thrown, I have no idea about this since I'm a newbie in unit testing. I tried to run my code on my controller to see if the relationship actually works, and fortunately it is working as expected, but not when run in phpunit. What have I done wrong for this phpunit not to work with Models?
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function connection() on null in E:\projects\try\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model.php:1013
Stack trace:
E:\projects\try\vendor\laravel\framework\src\Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model.php(979): Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model::resolveConnection(NULL)
This is my UserTest.php
<?php
namespace Tests\Unit;
use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseMigrations;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseTransactions;
use App\User;
use App\Shop;
class UserTest extends TestCase
{
protected $user, $shop;
function __construct()
{
$this->setUp();
}
function setUp()
{
$user = new User([
'id' => 1,
'first_name' => 'John',
'last_name' => 'Doe',
'email' => 'JohnDoe#example.com',
'password' => 'secret',
'facebook_id' => null,
'type' => 'customer',
'confirmation_code' => null,
'newsletter_subscription' => 0,
'last_online' => null,
'telephone' => null,
'mobile' => null,
'social_security_id' => null,
'address_1' => null,
'address_2' => null,
'city' => null,
'zip_code' => null,
'signed_agreement' => 0,
'is_email_confirmed' => 0
]);
$user = User::find(1);
$shop = new Shop([
'id' => 1,
'user_id' => $user->id,
'name' => 'PureFoods Hotdog2',
'description' => 'Something that describes this shop',
'url' => null,
'currency' => 'USD'
]);
$user->shops()->save($shop);
$shop = new Shop([
'id' => 2,
'user_id' => $user->id,
'name' => 'PureFoods Hotdog',
'description' => 'Something that describes this shop',
'url' => null,
'currency' => 'USD'
]);
$user->shops()->save($shop);
$this->user = $user;
}
/** #test */
public function a_user_has_an_id(){
$user = User::find(1);
$this->assertEquals(1, $user->id);
}
/** #test */
public function a_user_has_a_first_name()
{
$this->assertEquals("John", $this->user->first_name);
}
/** #test */
public function a_user_can_own_multiple_shops()
{
$shops = User::find(1)->shops()->get();
var_dump($this->shops);
$this->assertCount(2, $shops);
}
}
It seems, this error is caused by this line of code:
$user->shops()->save($shop); - this code actually works when run in my sample routes or Controller but is throwing errors when run in phpunit
User.php
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
class User extends Authenticatable
{
use Notifiable;
protected $guarded = [ 'id' ];
protected $table = "users";
/**
* The attributes that should be hidden for arrays.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $hidden = [
'password', 'remember_token',
];
/**
* returns the Shops that this user owned
*/
public function shops()
{
return $this->hasMany('App\Shop');
}
}
Shop.php
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Shop extends Model
{
protected $guarded = [ 'id' ];
protected $table = "shops";
/**
* returns the Owner of this Shop
*/
public function owner()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\User');
}
}
Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

First of all, setUp() is called before every test, so you shouldn't call it from within the constructor
Second of all, you should call the parent::setUp() in your setUp() to initialize the app instance.

Answer 2

One more reason
check if the test class is extending use Tests\TestCase; rather then use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
Laravel ships with the later, but Tests\TestCase class take care of setting up the application, otherwise models wont be able to communicate with the database if they are extending PHPunit\Framework\TestCase.

Answer 3

Example:
<?php
class ExampleTest extends TestCase
{
private $user;
public function setUp()
{
parent::setUp();
$this->user = \App\User::first();
}
public function testExample()
{
$this->assertEquals('victor#castrocontreras.com', $this->user->email);
}
}

Answer 4

a solution
use PHPunit\Framework\TestCase
Put this
use Tests\TestCase

Answer 5

You are assigning the id '2' to both shops.
Assigning is should not be neccessary since I assume the shop table id field is an autoincrement field.
Also look into database factories in the Laravel docs, it will simplify things for you.

Answer 6

That can be happens when you try to read database from dataprovider function. Like me tried, yes. The work way:
protected static $tariffs_default;
protected function setUp(): void {
parent::setUp ();
if (!static::$tariffs_default){
static::$tariffs_default = DB::...;
}
}
// in dataprovider we use string parm, named as our static vars
public static function provider_prov2(){
return [
[".....", [ 'tariffs'=>'tariffs_default'] ],
];
}
// then, in test we can ask our data by code:
public function testSome(string $inn, string $ogrn, $resp_body){
if ( $ta_var = Arr::get( $resp_body, 'tariffs' ) ){
Arr::set($resp_body, 'tariffs', static::$$ta_var );
}
$this->assert...
}

Answer 7

Cause of the problem: you can't use Laravel Models functionality from code called in the constructor of Class UserTest - even though you put the code in the method "setUp", you unnecessarily called it from the constructor. SetUp is called by phpUnit without you needing to do it in the constructor.
When the UserTest constructor has run, the Laravel Bootstrap code has not yet been called.
When the UserTest->setUp() method is called, the Laravel Bootstrap code HAS been run, so you can use you Models etc.
class UserTest extends TestCase
{protected $user, $shop;
function __construct()
{
$this->setUp(); // **THIS IS THE PROBLEM LINE**
}
function setUp()
{
$user = new User([....

Answer 8

Try composer dump-autoload
~Regards