phpunit getContent return empty

Question

I am learning Laravel 5.4, Still new to Laravel and PHPUnit. Everything is working great after following online basic tutorial.

This test function is working correctly when run phpunit

public function testBasicExample()
{
    $response = $this->call( 'GET' , '/welcome');

    $this->assertTrue(strpos($response->getContent(), 'Laravel') !== false);

}

Problem comes when I try to test Api

Steps I took

Create Api route for books
Return all users from users talbe as json from localhost/api/books/

public function index()
{
  $users = DB::table('users')->get()->toJson();
  echo $users;
}

I open the link in browser and json is returned correctly
copy and pasted json into online json validator jsonlint and it is valid.
Create a new test function

public function test_index_method_returns_all_books()
{
    $response = $this->call( 'GET' , '/api/books/');
      $this->assertEquals(200, $response->getStatusCode()); 

    $data = json_decode($response->getContent(),true);
    $this->assertJson($data);
}

run phpunit 200 status test passed but assertJson did not pass.
I tried to do var_dump for $response->getContent() and found out it return empty.

now I am not able to get getContent() for api/book/. Does anyone know if there is a solution for this?

Thanks.

Here is a screenshot

I am having similar issue where the curl call returns proper JSON response in the content, but an API call shows the class object information in public $original but the public $content is '{}'. Did you find a resolution to this? — nwolybug

marcmes marcmes · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-14T04:25:06

Try create some data with a factory before you call the api:

e.g.:

factory(\App\Books::class, 20)->create();

then

$response = $this->call( 'GET' , '/api/books/');

If you had set ":memory:" as your database on phpunit.xml, you will no longer see any data from your local database, that's why you should use factory instead.

phpunit getContent return empty

1 Answers