laravel test fail in route redirection - php

Question

i am testing a form. Upon success it must redirect to a route.
Here is the route excerpt
<?php
Route::group(array('prefix'=>'categories'), function(){
Route::get('/', array('as'=>'categories', 'uses'=>'CategoryController#getCategory'));
Route::get('addcategory',array('as'=>'getcategoryform', 'uses'=>'CategoryController#getCategoryForm'));
Route::post('addcategory', array('as'=>'postcategoryform', 'uses' => 'CategoryController#postCategoryForm'));
});
This is the controller
class CategoryController extends BaseController {
// adding Category model instance in the controller through the constructor
public function __construct(Category $category){
$this->category = $category;
}
public function getCategoryForm(){
return View::make('dashboard.addcategoryform');
}
public function postCategoryForm(){
$rules = ['category_name' => 'required|between:3,20', 'options' =>'required'];
$validator = Validator::make(Input::all(), $rules);
if($validator->passes()){
$category = new Category;
$category->category_name = Input::get('category_name');
$category->options = Input::get('options');
$category->save();
Session::flash('message', 'Category Added Successfully');
return Redirect::route('categories');
}else return Redirect::route('getcategoryform')->withErrors($validator);
}
here's the view
#extends('layouts.main')
#section('content')
<div class="g12">
<h1>Add Category</h1>
{{Form::open(array('route'=>'postcategoryform'))}}
{{ Form::text('category_name', Input::old('category_name'), array('placeholder' => 'eg article') )}}
<textarea id="textarea_auto" name="options" value="Input::old('options')" placeholder="eg. author, facts, tags, reference, book"></textarea>
{{Form::submit('Add')}}
{{Form::close()}}
</div>
#stop
This is the test that i tried:
public function testPassedPostCategoryForm(){
Input::replace(['category_name' => 'dummycat', 'options' => 'dummyoption']);
$this->mock
->shouldReceive('create')
->once();
$this->app->instance('Category', $this->mock);
$this->call('POST', 'categories/addcategory');
$this->assertRedirectedToRoute('categories');
}
The test is failing. This is the error i'm, receiving:
There was 1 failure:
1) CategoryControllerTest::testPassedPostCategoryForm
Failed asserting that two strings are equal.
--- Expected
+++ Actual
## ##
-'http://localhost/categories'
+'http://localhost/categories/addcategory'

Answer 1

In your code, the validator is not passed.
So the redirect back to http://localhost/categories leads to fail result.
It goes well if you delete the validator, and simply return such that
public function postCategoryForm(){
$rules = ['category_name' => 'required|between:3,20', 'options' =>'required'];
$validator = Validator::make(Input::all(), $rules);
return Redirect::route('categories');
}
Or you can rewrite the test code as follows,
$this->call('POST', 'categories/addcategory', array( 'category_name'=> 'dummycat' ,
'options' => 'dummyoption'));
or
$this->route('POST','getcategoryform',array( 'category_name'=> 'dummycat' ,
'options' => 'dummyoption'));
instead of
$this->call('POST', 'categories/addcategory');
[Edit] Further, delete followings
$this->mock
->shouldReceive('create')
->once();
,because the 'create' method is not called in the controller.