Laravel Unit testing Eloquent insertion - php

Question

I'm currently having some troubles in testing a function in Laravel. This function is a simple save user function.
The current structure involves a User
class User extends Authenticatable
Then I have a UserController
class UserController extends Controller
{
protected $user;
public function __construct(User $user)
{
$this->user = $user;
$this->middleware('admins');
}
The save function is defined on the UserController class, this class only assigns the request variables and uses Eloquent save function to save to database.
The function signature is the following:
public function storeUser($request)
{
$this->user->name = $request->name;
$this->user->email = $request->email;
$this->user->country_id = $request->country_id;
return $this->user->save();
}
The NewAccountRequest object extends from Request and has the validation rules for the request.
class NewAccountRequest extends Request
{
public function authorize()
{
return true;
}
public function rules()
{
return [
'name' => 'required|max:255',
'email' => 'required|email|max:255|unique:user',
'password' => 'required|min:6|max:60',
];
}
}
My problem is how can I unit test this storeUser function.
I have the current test:
public function testSaveUserWithEmptyRequest()
{
$user = $this->createMock(User::class);
$controller = new UserController($user);
$request = $this->createMock(NewAccountRequest::class);
$store = $controller->storeUser($request);
$this->assertFalse($store);
}
I'm mocking both User and NewAccountRequest, the problem is that the assertion should be false, from the Eloquent save. Instead I'm getting Null. Any idea on how can I correctly test the function?

Answer 1

<?php
namespace Tests\Unit;
use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseMigrations;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseTransactions;
class ExampleTest extends TestCase
{
use DatabaseTransactions; // Laravel will automatically roll back changes that happens in every test
public function testSaveUserWithEmptyRequest()
{
$user = new User();
$controller = new UserController($user);
$request = $this->createMock(NewAccountRequest::class);
$store = $controller->storeUser($request);
$this->assertFalse($store);
}
}
This is exactly what you are trying to do, but unfortunately this will fail due to database exceptions...
Mocking a request or even manually crafting it will not do the data input validation.. and in your example password field is not nullable and will cause PDOException: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1364 Field 'password' doesn't have a default value
The recommended way to test functions depending on request, is to use http test helpers provided by laravel like $response = $this->post('/user', ['name' => 'Sally']);
A much better approach is to use the repository design pattern.. this simply means collate your database functions into separate classes and call it from controllers ..