How to do simple testing of a Laravel controller? - php

Question

In most web apps I've worked on, I can create a simple test script (test.php), load all dependencies (usually through an autoloader), setup the database connection, make calls to any class methods, then examine the results they return to make sure everything looks right.
Example:
$test = new Item;
var_dump($test->getItemStatus($itemid));
The above would show a nice output of the values it returns for that itemid.
With Laravel it appears to be much more complex to just perform this simple test...or maybe I am overcomplicating it and there is a simple way to do this.
Suppose I want to do the same thing in a Laravel 4 app. I want to test the output of method getItemStatus in controller named ItemsController that uses the model Items.
If I try the following, I get an Symfony \ Component \ Debug \ Exception \ FatalErrorException error:
$items = App::make('ItemsController')->getItemStatus($itemid);
If I define this route in routes.php:
Route::get('items/get-item-status', array('as' => 'getItemStatus', 'uses' => 'ItemsController#getItemStatus'));
Then try the following, I get Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotFoundHttpException in the request output:
$request = Request::create('items/get-item-status', 'GET', array());
$items = Route::dispatch($request)->getContent();

Answer 1

In my opinion in Laravel is much more simple and maybe that's why you might be overthinking it.
Let's start with a very basic router. Here are some options to do simple debug using Laravel applications in a basic router/controller:
Route::get('test', function() {
$test = new Item;
dd($test);
Log::info($test); // will show in your log
var_dump($test);
});
Now follow:
http://yourserver.com/test
And it should stop on
dd($test);
Vardumping and dying at that line. Comment it, try again, and so on.
All of these will also work in a controller:
Route::get('test/{var?}', 'TestController#index');
The very same way:
class TestController extends Controller {
public function index($var = null)
{
$test = new Item;
dd($var);
dd($test);
Log::info($var);
Log::info($test);
var_dump($test);
var_dump($var);
}
}
Your route:
Route::get('items/get-item-status', array('as' => 'getItemStatus', 'uses' => 'ItemsController#getItemStatus'));
Should also work, if you follow:
http://yourserver.com/items/get-item-status
If it doesn't, try to follow
http://yourserver.com/public/index.php/items/get-item-status
Or just
http://yourserver.com/public/items/get-item-status
Because you might have a virtual host or .htaccess configuration problem.