Laravel REST API Testing in phpunit

0
votes

I am trying to test a Laravel REST API, through phpunit. While testing REST calls, I am unable to isolate REST calls test.

In Laravel, I understand a few options like using traits DatabaseMigrations, DatabaseRefresh, DatabaseTransactions. But I can't use these for the following reasons:

  • DatabaseMigrations: The app does not have proper migrations. Even if it had, those would be quite in-efficient.

  • DatabaseRefresh: Same as above.

  • DatabaseTransactions. The problem I see is that call to HTTP API is a completely different process. These are not within the same transaction. So a test that inserts data to setup the test case is not seen by HTTP call. Also, if data is inserted by HTTP calls like will be visible to other tests.

I can't write unit tests without calling HTTP; the app is not written in such a way. Entire code is in Routes or in Controller is not otherwise testable.

2
laravelrestphpunit
If you don't have your planned production database structured in a way which doesn't comply with sqlite - then working on defining proper migrations will be a good step. Then you can use in-memory sqlite for testing with DatabaseMigrations or RefreshDatabase and the tests will still be pretty fast - just a thought – Donkarnash
@Donkarnash It will be pretty hard to create migrations of an entire schema, though not impossible. I will give it a try once I find a tool that does that automatically, I mean take a sql and convert it to Laravel Migration/Seeder. However I am still looking for a solution that perhaps deals with Transactions. That is perhaps the path of least resistance. – Scalable
Can you explain why is the API Call a completely different transaction? Have you try to write a simple test case? if so, can you show us the code? – Diogo Gomes
I think the misconception you have is that you intend to call the API using a HTTP request over the network. In Laravel, you have HTTP Tests for that, see the docs at laravel.com/docs/8.x/http-tests for more info. The whole idea with testing is that you always use mock instances. How else would you prevent the application from triggering real-life events or writing to your dev or even production database instead of the test DB? – Lupinity Labs

2 Answers

0
votes

i test my my endpoints with the json function ( i believe there is a POST and GET method as well, but i need to pass in data and headers)

public function test_endpoint() {
        $result = $this->json('POST', '/api', ['key' => 'data'], ['Header' => "Value"]);
}

i have unit and feature tests as well, but i use this for testing graphQL endpoint.

0
votes

So in my example void means that our method does not returning anything. postJson means we expect JSON response, either we can do just $this->post()

You can make calls like this

public function test_create_order() : void
    {
        $response = $this->postJson('/make-order',[
            'foo' => 'bar',
            'baz' => 'bat'
        ]);

        // To make sure it is returning 201 created status code, or other code e.g. (200 OK)
        $response->assertStatus(201);

        // To make sure it is in your desired structure 
        $response->assertJsonStructure([
                'id',
                'foo',
                'baz',
        ]);
 
        // Check if response contains exactly that value, what we inserted
        $this->assertEquals('bar', $response->json('data.foo'));

        // Check that in the database created that record,
        // param 1 is table name, param 2 is criteria to find that record
        // e.g. ['id' => 1]
        $this->assertDatabaseHas('orders', [
            'foo' => 'bar'
        ]);
        // Also there is other method assertDatabaseMissing, that works like above
        // just in reverse logic, it is checking that there is no record with that criteria
       
    }