Factory States For Clean And Fluent Laravel Testing

In my previous article, I had explained why should we use Laravel factories. You can check the article at Factories To Speed Up Test-Driven Development In Laravel.

In this article let's see how we can use Factory states to write fluent test cases.

---

Without Factory States

First, let's see how does our test cases look like without any factory states. Basically, we are writing a test to check that the user cannot view any unpublished blog posts.

In Laravel 8

tests / Feature / PostsTest.php

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $post = Post::factory()->create([
        'published_at'  => null
    ]);
    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);

    $resource->assertStatus(404);
}

database / factories / PostFactory.php

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

    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'),
    ];
}

---

Laravel 7 & Earlier Versions

tests / Feature / PostsTest.php

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $post = factory(Post::class)->create([
        'published_at'  => null
    ]);
    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);

    $resource->assertStatus(404);
}

database / factories / PostFactory.php

$factory->define(Post::class, function (Faker $faker) {
    $title = $faker->title;
    return [
        'title'         => $title,
        'slug'          => Str::slug($title),
        'summary'       => $faker->paragraph,
        'body'          => $faker->paragraph,
        'author_id'     => function () {
            return factory(User::class)->create()->id;
        },
    ];
});

---

With Factory States

Basically, there is no problem with the above approach. Since we can write more cleaner we can use this approach.

From the above code snippet, we can write the code

Laravel 8

tests / Feature / PostsTest.php

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
  $post = Post::factory()->states(['unpublished'])->create();
  $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);
  $resource->assertStatus(404);
}

database / factories / PostFactory.php

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

public function definition(){
  $title = $this->faker->title;
  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'),
  ];
}


public function unpublished()
{
  return $this->state(function (array $attributes) {
    return [
      'published_at' => null
    ];
  });
}

public function published()
{
  return $this->state(function (array $attributes) {
    return [
      'published_at' => Carbon::parse('-1 week')
    ];
  });
}

Laravel 7 & Earlier Versions

From

$post = factory(Post::class)->create([
    'published_at'  => null
]);

To

$post = factory(Post::class)->states(['unpublished'])->create();

---

Now your test case will look like the following very lean, clean & fluent

Laravel 7 & Earlier Versions

tests / Feature / PostsTest.php

/**
* @test
*/
public function user_cannot_view_unpublished_post()
{
    $post = factory(Post::class)->states(['unpublished'])->create();
    $resource = $this->get("/posts/" . $post->slug);
    $resource->assertStatus(404);
}

database / factories / PostFactory.php

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

$factory->state(Post::class, 'unpublished', function (Faker $faker) {
    return [
        'published_at' => null
    ];
});

/** Similarly you can have published state too */

$factory->state(Post::class, 'published', function (Faker $faker) {
    return [
        'published_at' => Carbon::parse('-1 week')
    ];
});

---

Conclusion

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

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