In the handle of your custom Laravel command, can you call the command again? Like this, described using sort of pseudo-code:
public function handle() {
code..
code..
$this->importantValue = $this->option('value'); //value is 'hello'
if(something) {
//call of the same command is made, but with different arguments or options
//command does stuff and ends successfully
$this->call('myself' [
'value' => 'ahoy'
];
//I expect the handle to be returned to the original command
}
var_dump($this->importantValue); //this equals 'ahoy'
}
Why is this? What does that newly called command has in common with the original within which it had been called?
EDIT: The newly called command would not reach the condition something it would not call itself again (forever). The original command seems to pick up from where it left (before calling itself the first and only time) yet it seems it has had inherited the "children's" variables.
I do think that calling Artisan::call() instead of $this->call() might avoid that problem (note that avoiding is not the same as solving)...
#t-maxx: I'm getting the exact same issue and I'm not sure that #ben understands.
I have a command that is recursive, based on an argument, depth. The depth argument is set to a protected property as one of the first steps in handle(). Then, if depth is greater than zero, it calls itself (via $this->call()), but passing $this->depth - 1. I watch each successive call and it just goes down and down and down, never plateauing or bouncing up was the recursion would allow and as one would expect.
So...while I'm not 100% sure what's going on, I'm thinking of getting the depth option once, but passing it around as a variable (versus a property on the object). This is ugly, I think, but it may be the only solution until this is recognized and resolved. On the other hand, it could be that we're both doing the wrong thing.
Calling Artisan::call() for me leads to other issues that I'd rather avoid. The command I'm working with writes to a file and I don't want a bunch of separate commands competing for the same file.
Yes, you can Programmatically Executing Commands using Artisan::call
Artisan::call('myself', [
'value' => 'ahoy'
]);
I wrote a small framework, but I am studying others. They are big, so I'm still trying to grasp their design.
When a user calls the controller or router, is call_user_func_array the typical way the page is "handed off" to the renderer?
I tend to see this type of thing which is what I did in mine. It looks like this is what it does in Codeigniter, but I am not sure.
if ((int)method_exists($controller, $action)) {
call_user_func_array(array($dispatch,$action),$queryString);
} else {
/* Error Generation Code Here */
}
I saw this in CodeIgniter:
// Execute the callback using the values in matches as its parameters.
$val = call_user_func_array($val, $matches);
The call_user_func_array() function is used for when you don't know the function you are calling ahead of time. This is why most of the time, the parameters inside are variables.
If you know what function you want to call, always call it manually, otherwise, use this php in-built function.
You should look at the PHP documentation: http://php.net/manual/en/function.call-user-func-array.php
Also another stack overflow question sort of answers this:
PHP call_user_func vs. just calling function
Is it possible to implement event driven program in PHP?
Something like javascript.
As an example, try to open a socket(open_socket) and execute some other command(do_something_else) instead of waiting for the success response of socket request.
After getting the success response execute callback_execute.
//--------------------------------------------------------------------
public function open_socket(){
$this->socketResource = fsockopen($this->nodeIp,$this->portNumber);
}
public function callback_execute(){
fputs($this->socketResource,$command);
}
public function do_something_else{ xxxxx }
//--------------------------------------------------------------------
Non_blocking_function($obj->open_socket(),$obj->callback_execute());
$obj->do_something_else();
There is only a single thread in PHP. Therefore doing something useful whilst waiting for some event is not possible in PHP.
Some workarounds are available but probably not very reliable – especially not when you plan to write portable code. I would assume the workarounds are risky since the language does not have a concept of concurrency. It's therefore probably best to write multi-threaded code in another language (Java, Scala, …) and use PHP just for displaying the prepared results (if using PHP at all for such problems).
in php i wrote my own debug function which have two arguments: text and a level of message. However i could be also you the php functions for triggering errors. But to debug in development i use sometimes like this:
debug($xmlobject->asXML(),MY_CONSTANT);
now i want to know whether it is a lack of performance in non debug executing because the arguments are calculated indepent whether they will be used inside function? and how to do that right that is only calculated if i need?
Thanks for your help,
Robert
If you write the following portion of code :
debug($xmlobject->asXML(),MY_CONSTANT);
Then, no matter what the debug() function does, $xmlobject->asXML() will be called and executed.
If you do not want that expression to be evaluated, you must not call it; I see two possible solutions :
Remove the useless-in-production calls to the debug() function, not leaving any debugging code in your source files,
Or make sure they are only executed when needed.
In the second case, a possibility would be to define a constant to configure whether or not you are in debug-mode, and, then, only call debug() when needed :
if (DEBUG) {
debug($xmlobject->asXML(),MY_CONSTANT);
}
Of course, the makes writting debbuging-code a bit harder... and there is a bit of performance-impact (but far smaller than executing the actual code for nothing).
The arguments are sended by value, ergo the method ->asXML() is executed always.
... not knowing if 'mock' is the right word.
Anyway, I have an inherited code-base that I'm trying to write some tests for that are time-based. Trying not to be too vague, the code is related to looking at the history of an item and determining if that item has now based a time threshold.
At some point I also need to test adding something to that history and checking that the threshold is now changed (and, obviously, correct).
The problem that I'm hitting is that part of the code I'm testing is using calls to time() and so I'm finding it really hard to know exactly what the threshold time should be, based on the fact that I'm not quite sure exactly when that time() function is going to be called.
So my question is basically this: is there some way for me to 'override' the time() call, or somehow 'mock out' the time, such that my tests are working in a 'known time'?
Or do I just have to accept the fact that I'm going to have to do something in the code that I'm testing, to somehow allow me to force it to use a particular time if need be?
Either way, are there any 'common practices' for developing time-sensitive functionality that is test friendly?
Edit:
Part of my problem, too, is the fact that the time that things occurred in history affect the threshold. Here's an example of part of my problem...
Imagine you have a banana and you're trying to work out when it needs to be eaten by. Let's say that it will expire within 3 days, unless it was sprayed with some chemical, in which case we add 4 days to the expiry, from the time the spray was applied. Then, we can add another 3 months to it by freezing it, but if it's been frozen then we only have 1 day to use it after it thaws.
All of these rules are dictated by historical timings. I agree that I could use the Dominik's suggestion of testing within a few seconds, but what of my historical data? Should I just 'create' that on the fly?
As you may or may not be able to tell, I'm still trying to get a hang of all of this 'testing' concept ;)
I recently came up with another solution that is great if you are using PHP 5.3 namespaces. You can implement a new time() function inside your current namespace and create a shared resource where you set the return value in your tests. Then any unqualified call to time() will use your new function.
For further reading I described it in detail in my blog
Carbon::setTestNow(Carbon $time = null) makes any call to Carbon::now() or new Carbon('now') return the same time.
https://medium.com/#stefanledin/mock-date-and-time-with-carbon-8a9f72cb843d
Example:
public function testSomething()
{
$now = Carbon::now();
// Mock Carbon::now() / new Carbon('now') to always return the same time
Carbon::setTestNow($now);
// Do the time sensitive test:
$this->retroEncabulator('prefabulate')
->assertJsonFragment(['whenDidThisHappen' => $now->timestamp])
// Release the Carbon::now() mock
Carbon::setTestNow();
}
The $this->retroEncabulator() function needs to use Carbon::now() or new Carbon('now') internally of course.
For those of you working with symfony (>= 2.8): Symfony's PHPUnit Bridge includes a ClockMock feature that overrides the built-in methods time, microtime, sleep and usleep.
See: http://symfony.com/doc/2.8/components/phpunit_bridge.html#clock-mocking
You can mock time for test using Clock from ouzo-goodies. (Disclaimer: I wrote this library.)
In code use simply:
$time = Clock::now();
Then in tests:
Clock::freeze('2014-01-07 12:34');
$result = Class::getCurrDate();
$this->assertEquals('2014-01-07', $result);
I had to simulate a particular request in future and past date in the app itself (not in Unit Tests). Hence all calls to \DateTime::now() should return the date that was previously set throughout the app.
I decided to go with this library https://github.com/rezzza/TimeTraveler, since I can mock the dates without altering all the codes.
\Rezzza\TimeTraveler::enable();
\Rezzza\TimeTraveler::moveTo('2011-06-10 11:00:00');
var_dump(new \DateTime()); // 2011-06-10 11:00:00
var_dump(new \DateTime('+2 hours')); // 2011-06-10 13:00:00
Personally, I keep using time() in the tested functions/methods. In your test code, just make sure to not test for equality with time(), but simply for a time difference of less than 1 or 2 (depending on how much time the function takes to execute)
You can overide php's time() function using the runkit extension. Make sure you set runkit.internal_overide to On
Using [runkit][1] extension:
define('MOCK_DATE', '2014-01-08');
define('MOCK_TIME', '17:30:00');
define('MOCK_DATETIME', MOCK_DATE.' '.MOCK_TIME);
private function mockDate()
{
runkit_function_rename('date', 'date_real');
runkit_function_add('date','$format="Y-m-d H:i:s", $timestamp=NULL', '$ts = $timestamp ? $timestamp : strtotime(MOCK_DATETIME); return date_real($format, $ts);');
}
private function unmockDate()
{
runkit_function_remove('date');
runkit_function_rename('date_real', 'date');
}
You can even test the mock like this:
public function testMockDate()
{
$this->mockDate();
$this->assertEquals(MOCK_DATE, date('Y-m-d'));
$this->assertEquals(MOCK_TIME, date('H:i:s'));
$this->assertEquals(MOCK_DATETIME, date());
$this->unmockDate();
}
In most cases this will do. It has some advantages:
you don't have to mock anything
you don't need external plugins
you can use any time function, not only time() but DateTime objects as well
you don't need to use namespaces.
It's using phpunit, but you can addapt it to any other testing framework, you just need function that works like assertContains() from phpunit.
1) Add below function to your test class or bootstrap. Default tolerance for time is 2 secs. You can change it by passing 3rd argument to assertTimeEquals or modify function args.
private function assertTimeEquals($testedTime, $shouldBeTime, $timeTolerance = 2)
{
$toleranceRange = range($shouldBeTime, $shouldBeTime+$timeTolerance);
return $this->assertContains($testedTime, $toleranceRange);
}
2) Testing example:
public function testGetLastLogDateInSecondsAgo()
{
// given
$date = new DateTime();
$date->modify('-189 seconds');
// when
$this->setLastLogDate($date);
// then
$this->assertTimeEquals(189, $this->userData->getLastLogDateInSecondsAgo());
}
assertTimeEquals() will check if array of (189, 190, 191) contains 189.
This test should be passed for correct working function IF executing test function takes less then 2 seconds.
It's not perfect and super-accurate, but it's very simple and in many cases it's enough to test what you want to test.
Simplest solution would be to override PHP time() function and replace it with your own version. However, you cannot replace built-in PHP functions easily (see here).
Short of that, the only way is to abstract time() call to some class/function of your own that would return the time you need for testing.
Alternatively, you could run the test system (operating system) in a virtual machine and change the time of the entire virtual computer.
Here's an addition to fab's post. I did the namespace based override using an eval. This way, I can just run it for tests and not the rest of my code. I run a function similar to:
function timeOverrides($namespaces = array()) {
$returnTime = time();
foreach ($namespaces as $namespace) {
eval("namespace $namespace; function time() { return $returnTime; }");
}
}
then pass in timeOverrides(array(...)) in the test setup so that my tests only have to keep track of what namespaces time() is called in.
Disclaimer: I wrote this library.
If you are free to install php extensions in your system, you could then use https://github.com/slope-it/clock-mock.
That library requires ext-uopz >= 6.1.1 and by using ClockMock::freeze and ClockMock::reset you can move the internal php clock to whatever date and time you like. The cool thing about it is that it requires zero modifications to your production code because it mocks transparently \DateTime and \DateTimeImmutable objects as well as some of the global functions (e.g. date(), time(), etc...).
You can use libfaketime
https://github.com/wolfcw/libfaketime
LD_PRELOAD=src/libfaketime.so.1 FAKETIME="#2020-01-01 11:12:13" phpunit
It will be as if you changed your system clock but only for that process, and it will work regardless of how low level your phpcode is
(Except if they use an external API call to get the time of course !)