Creating relations using Laravel model factories - php

Question

I am trying to create a user using model factories but I am having an error with the relationships. In the User model, I have created a belongsTo relationship levels for the model JobLevel. In the ModelFactory.php I have the following code.
use App\User;
use App\JobLevel;
$factory->define(JobLevel::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
'name' => $faker->word,
'rank' => $faker->randomDigit,
];
});
$factory->define(User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
'firstname' => $faker->name,
'middlename' => $faker->name,
'lastname' => $faker->name,
'email' => $faker->email,
'job_level_id' => factory(JobLevel::class)->create()->id,
'password' => bcrypt(str_random(10)),
'remember_token' => str_random(10),
];
});
Then I am in my test class I use the factory as follows.
/** #test */
public function login_a_user()
{
$user = factory(User::class)->create();
...
}
When I run phpunit I get the following error
Illuminate\Database\QueryException: SQLSTATE[23000]: Integrity
constraint violation: 1452 Cannot add or update a child row: a foreign key
constraint fails (`testing_db`.`user`, CONSTRAINT `fk_user_job_level1`
FOREIGN KEY (`job_level_id`) REFERENCES `job_level` (`id`) ON DELETE NO
ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION) (SQL: insert into `user` (`updated_at`,
`created_at`) values (2016-11-08 12:01:14, 2016-11-08 12:01:14))

Answer 1

Could you, for testing purposes try this?
$factory->define(User::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {
return [
'firstname' => $faker->name,
'middlename' => $faker->name,
'lastname' => $faker->name,
'email' => $faker->email,
'job_level_id' => 1,
'password' => bcrypt(str_random(10)),
'remember_token' => str_random(10),
];
});
public function login_a_user()
{
$job = factory(JobLevel::class)->create();
$user = factory(User::class)->create();
...
}
I am not sure you can embed those factories.