Using a Test Database

We're using the built-in PHP web server running on port 8000. We have that hardcoded at the top of ApiTestCase: when the Client is created, it always goes to localhost:8000. Bummer! All of our fellow code battlers will need to have the exact same setup.

We need to make this configurable - create a new variable $baseUrl and set it to an environment variable called TEST_BASE_URL - I'm making that name up. Use this for the base_url option:

There are endless ways to set environment variables. But we want to at least give this a default value. Open up app/phpunit.xml.dist. Get rid of those comments - we want a php element with an env node inside. I'll paste that in:

If you have our setup, everything just works. If not, you can set this environment variable or create a phpunit.xml file to override everything.

Let's double-check that this all works:

phpunit -c app --filter testGETProgrammersCollection src/AppBundle/Tests/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php

Tests Killed our Database

One little bummer is that the tests are using our development database. Since those create a weaverryan user with password foo, that still works. But the cute programmer we created earlier is gone - they've been wiped out, sent to /dev/null... hate to see that.

Configuring the test Environment

Symfony has a test environment for just this reason. So let's use it! Start by copying app_dev.php to app_test.php, then change the environment key from dev to test. To know if this all works, put a temporary die statement right on top:

We'll setup our tests to hit this file instead of app_dev.php, which is being used now because Symfony's server:run command sets up the web server with that as the default.

Once we do that, we can setup the test environment to use a different database name. Open config.yml and copy the doctrine configuration. Paste it into config_test.yml to override the original. All we really want to change is dbname. I like to just take the real database name and suffix it with _test:

Ok, last step. In phpunit.xml.dist, add a /app_test.php to the end of the URL. In theory, all our API requests will now hit this front controller.

Run the test! This shouldn't pass - it should hit that die statement on every endpoint:

phpunit -c app --filter testGETProgrammersCollection src/AppBundle/Tests/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php

They fail! But not for the reason we wanted:

Unknown database `symfony_rest_recording_test`

Woops, I forgot to create the new test database. Fix this with doctrine:database:create in the test environment and doctrine:schema:create:

php app/console doctrine:database:create --env=test
php app/console doctrine:schema:create --env=test

Try it again:

phpunit -c app --filter testGETProgrammersCollection src/AppBundle/Tests/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php

Huh, it passed. Not expected. We should be hitting this die statement. Something weird is going on.

Debugging Weird/Failing Requests

Go into ProgrammerControllerTest to debug this. We should be going to a URL with app_test.php at the front, but it seems like that's not happening. Use $this->printLastRequestUrl() after making the request:

This is one of the helper functions I wrote - it shows the true URL that Guzzle is using.

Now run the test:

phpunit -c app --filter testGETProgrammersCollection src/AppBundle/Tests/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php

Huh, so there's not app_test.php in the URL. Ok, so here's the deal. With Guzzle, if you have this opening slash in the URL, it takes that string and puts it right after the domain part of your base_url. Anything after that gets run over. We could fix this by taking out the opening slash everywhere - like api/programmers - but I just don't like that: it looks weird.

Properly Prefixing all URIs

Instead, get rid of the app_test.php part in phpunit.xml.dist:

We'll solve this a different way. When the Client is created in ApiTestCase, we have the chance to attach listeners to it. Basically, we can hook into different points, like right before a request is sent or right after. Actually, I'm already doing that to keep track of the Client's history for some debugging stuff.

I'll paste some code, and add a use statement for this BeforeEvent class:

Ah Guzzle - you're so easy to understand sometimes! So as you can probably guess, this function is called before every request is made. All we do is look to see if the path starts with /api. If it does, prefix that with /app_test.php. This will make every request use that front controller, without ever needing to think about that in the tests.

Give it another shot:

phpunit -c app --filter testGETProgrammersCollection src/AppBundle/Tests/Controller/Api/ProgrammerControllerTest.php

Errors! Yes - it doesn't see a programmers property in the response because all we have is this crumby die statement text. Now that we know things hit app_test.php, go take that die statement out of it. And remove the printLastRequestUrl(). Run the entire test suite:

phpunit -c app

Almost! There's 1 failure! Inside testPOST - we're asserting that the Location header is this string, but now it has the app_test.php part in it. That's a false failure - our code is really working. Let's soften that test a bit. How about replacing assertEquals() with assertStringEndsWith(). Now let's see some passing:

phpunit -c app

Yay!