Factories To Speed Up Test-Driven Development In Laravel

In this article, I will explain how to use Laravel Factories for faster-test-driven development and supercharge your test cases.

---

Bad Approach: As We Repeat The Code

Think that we are creating a blog and we are testing to make sure that users must not view unpublished posts then we might have the following test code:

NOTE: Creating User ie $author for post in this test was not necessary, but if anyone interested to know how foreign keys are tested then it will help them.

tests / Feature / PostsTest

use Illuminate\Support\Str;
use Carbon\Carbon;

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $author = User::create([
        'name'      => 'John Doe',
        'email'     => 'john@example.com',
        'password'  => '$2y$10$92IXUNpkjO0rOQ5byMi.Ye4oKoEa3Ro9llC/.og/at2.uheWG/igi'
    ]);

    $title = 'My first blog';
    $post = Post::create([
        'title'         => $title,
        'slug'          => Str::slug($title),
        'summary'       => 'First blog summary',
        'body'          => 'First blog body',
        'author_id'     => $author->id,
        'published_at'  => null
    ]);

    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);

    $resource->assertStatus(404);
}

The code looks perfectly fine. But the issue is we are filling up the Post & Author details manually.

In this particular feature test, we are least concerned about the author details & in Posts only concerned about published_at.

---

Better Approach: Omit The Repeating Code With factory

Now let's refactor the above code by using factories.

Why Factories?

When performing testing, you may need to insert a few records into your database before executing your test. Instead of manually specifying the value of each column when you create this test data, Laravel allows you to define a default set of attributes for each of your Eloquent models using model factories.

Already Laravel comes with User Factory, just in case if you have deleted then you can use the following command to generate one

database / factories / UserFactory.php

php artisan make:factory UserFactory --model=User

Factory Code

In Laravel 8

class UserFactory extends Factory
{
    protected $model = User::class;

    public function definition()
    {
        return [
            'name' => $this->faker->name(),
            'email' => $this->faker->unique()->safeEmail(),
            'email_verified_at' => now(),
            'password' => Hash::make('password'),
            'remember_token' => Str::random(10),
        ];
    }
}

In Laravel 7 and earlier versions

$factory->define(User::class, function (Faker $faker) {
    return [
        'name' => $faker->name,
        'email' => $faker->unique()->safeEmail,
        'email_verified_at' => now(),
        'password' => Hash::make('password'),
        'remember_token' => Str::random(10),
    ];
});

---

database / factories / PostFactory.php

php artisan make:factory PostFactory --model=Post

Factory Code

In Laravel 8

class PostFactory extends Factory
{
    protected $model = Post::class;

    public function definition()
    {
        $title = $this->faker->sentence;

        return [
            'title'         => $title,
            'slug'          => Str::slug($title),
            'summary'       => $this->faker->paragraph,
            'body'          => $this->faker->paragraph,
            'author_id'     => function () {
                return User::factory()->create()->id;
            },
            'published_at'  => Carbon::parse('-1 week')
        ];
    }
}

In Laravel 7 and earlier versions

use App\Post;
use App\User;
use Carbon\Carbon;
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
use Faker\Generator as Faker;

$factory->define(Post::class, function (Faker $faker) {
    $title = $faker->sentence;

    return [
        'title'         => $title,
        'slug'          => Str::slug($title),
        'summary'       => $faker->paragraph,
        'body'          => $faker->paragraph,
        'author_id'     => function () {
            return factory(User::class)->create()->id;
        },
        'published_at'  => Carbon::parse('-1 week')
    ];
});

---

tests / Feature / PostsTest (Refactored Code)

Now our refactored test case looks like the following

In Laravel 8

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $author = User::factory()->create();

    $post = Post::factory()->create([
        'author_id'     => $author->id,
        'published_at'  => null
    ]);
    
    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);

    $resource->assertStatus(404);
    /** Assertion to check for author, but not necessary */
}

In Laravel 7 & earlier

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $author = factory(User::class)->create();

    $post = factory(Post::class)->create([
        'author_id'     => $author->id,
        'published_at'  => null
    ]);
    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);

    $resource->assertStatus(404);
    /** Assertion to check for author, but not necessary */
}

Very clean right.

---

Conclusion

I hope this article helped you. Please share it with your friends.

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