02-Factories.md

Factories

Ever found yourself repeatedly creating test models over and over?

$user = new User;
$user->email = '[email protected]'
$user->name = 'Joe';

This can very quickly flood your test classes. Instead, use a factory!

<?php

use Way\Tests\Factory;

class UserTest extends TestCase {

    public function testBasicExample()
    {
        $user = Factory::attributesFor('User');
    }
}

Now, the $user variable will be equal to random data that fits the data types for each field. Something like:

.array(6) {
  'id' =>
  NULL
  'name' =>
  string(3) "Kim"
  'email' =>
  string(15) "[email protected]"
  'age' =>
  int(26)
  'created_at' =>
  string(19) "2013-05-01 02:21:49"
  'updated_at' =>
  string(19) "2013-05-01 02:21:49"
}

Overrides

There will be times, though, when you need to specify values for some fields. This can be particularly helpful for validation, where, say, a model should be invalid, unless an email is provided.

$user = Factory::attributesFor('User', ['email' => null]);

Any fields specified in the second argument will override the random defaults.

Models

The static attributesFor method is great for fetching an array of attributes. If you want the full Laravel collection, then you have two options:

$user = Factory::user();

This technique uses callStatic to allow for the readable syntax shown above. This works, if the model is in the global namespace, but if it's not, you'll want to use the make method.

$user = Factory::make('Models\User');

If you happen to be working with a real test database, you can also use the create method, which will instantiate the model, fill it with dummy data, and save it to the db.

$user = Factory::create('User');