Use mockery to unit test a class with dependencies

Question

I'm new to testing and I am trying to create a unit test that covers the first if statement in the NewsCreator create method.

This question has two parts.

First: How should I be instantiating NewsCreator to handle the mocked validator and repository?

Second: What would the correct way to test this path be?

Here is my controller method that calls the class that needs testing:

public function store()
{
    $creator = new NewsCreator($this);
    return $creator->create(Input::all());
}

Here is the class that I wish to test, NewsCreator:

<?php namespace WHS\Portal\News;

class NewsCreator {

    protected $listener;
    protected $repository;
    protected $validator;
    protected $errors;

    public function __construct($listener, NewsRepositoryInterface $repository, NewsValidator $validator)
    {
        $this->listener = $listener;
        $this->repository = $repository;
        $this->validator = $validator;
        $this->errors = [];
    }
    public function create($data)
    {
        if($this->validator->fails($data))
        {
            return $this->listener->newsCreationFails($this->validator->messages());
        }
        if($this->repository->create($data))
        {
            return $this->listener->newsCreationSucceeds();
        }
        return $this->listener->newsCreationFails($this->errors);
    }
}

This is the test I attempted to write, but it fails with exception:

2) WHS\Portal\Tests\News\NewsCreatorTest::test_failed_validation Mockery\Exception\InvalidCountException: Method fails("foo") from Mockery_1_WHS_Portal_News_NewsValidator should be called exactly 1 times but called 0 times.

<?php namespace WHS\Portal\Tests\News;

    use TestCase;
    use Mockery as m;

    class NewsCreatorTest extends TestCase {

        public function tearDown()
        {
            m::close();
        }

        public function test_failed_validation()
        {
            $newsRepo = m::mock('\WHS\Portal\News\DbNewsRepository["create"]');
            $newsValidator = m::mock('\WHS\Portal\News\NewsValidator["fails"]');

            $listener = new NewsListenerStub();
            $listener = m::mock($listener)->makePartial();

            $newsValidator->shouldReceive('fails')->with('foo')->once()->andReturn(true);
            $listener->shouldReceive('newsCreationFails')->once()->with('foo')->andReturn();

            $newsCreator = new \WHS\Portal\News\NewsCreator($listener,$newsRepo,$newsValidator);
            $newsCreator->create([]);
        }
    }

Updated test:

use TestCase;
use Mockery as m;

class NewsCreatorTest extends TestCase {

    public function tearDown()
    {
        m::close();
    }

    public function test_failed_validation()
    {
        $newsRepo = m::mock('\WHS\Portal\News\DbNewsRepository["create"]');
        $newsValidator = m::mock('\WHS\Portal\News\NewsValidator["fails"]');

        $listener = m::mock('\WHS\Portal\Tests\News\NewsListenerStub["newsCreationFails"]');

        $newsValidator->shouldReceive('fails')->with([])->once()->andReturn(true);
        $newsValidator->shouldReceive('messages')->once();
        $listener->shouldReceive('newsCreationFails')->once()->with('foo')->andReturn('foo-bar');

        $newsCreator = new \WHS\Portal\News\NewsCreator($listener,$newsRepo,$newsValidator);

        $result = $newsCreator->create([]);
        $this->assertEquals('foo-bar', $result);
    }
}

The stub class:

class NewsListenerStub
{
    public function newsCreationFails($data)
    {
        return $data;
    }
}

Please help.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The method fails() is called with the $data argument in your class. In your unit test your are passing in an empty array as data create([]). Your argument expectation on the validatorMock is expecting fails() to be called with the parameter foo. You have to alter that to match the empty array.

$newsValidator->shouldReceive('fails')->with([])->once()->andReturn(true);

Also you have to specify the validator->messages() method on the validatorMock because that is also being called in your class.

$newsValidator->shouldReceive('messages')->once();

For this test to really make sence you have to assert that the result of NewsCreationFails matches the return value of create().

$listener->shouldReceive('newsCreationFails')->once()->with('foo')->andReturn('foo-bar');
...
$result = $newsCreator->create([]);

$this->assertEquals('foo-bar', $result);