CakePHP Unit Test Model Woes :(

2008-11-25T15:50:00.000Z

I've been struggling for a couple of days now to build a very simple 'model' unit test.

CakePHPs "Convention over Configuration" should help me out here and so should the Cookbook. Convention over configuration means that there won't be lots of config files to edit or changes to make to any core files of the framework as long as I stick to the CakePHP conventions.

With Unit Tests though, it's quite hard to uncover the what the conventions are. The filename conventions described in the Cookbook (1.2) differ from, for example, the fixture files created using Bake. Also the guys at Debuggable have re-factored and simplified the building of model tests as well as sharing a fixturize script that automates the building of fixtures.

All great stuff!
If only I could get the simplest test up and running :(

I have a table 'users' in both my 'default' and 'test' databases:


DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `users`;
CREATE TABLE `users` (
`id` INTEGER(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`email` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`password` varchar(200) NOT NULL,
`status` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1',
`created` datetime NOT NULL,
`modified` datetime NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

in my 'default' DB the table contains some sample records:


INSERT INTO `users`
VALUES     ('1', 'andy@xyz.com', MD5('xyz'), '1', NOW(), NOW()),
   ('2', 'joe@joe.com', MD5('abc'), '1', NOW(), NOW()),
   ('3', 'badboy@badboy.com', MD5('123'), '0', NOW(), NOW());

My User model (user.php):


<?php
class User extends AppModel {
 var $name = 'User';
 
 function enabledUsers($fields = null) {
  $conditions = array(
   $this->name . '.status' => 1
  );
  return $this->findAll($conditions, $fields);
 }
}
?>

I used Debuggable's Fixturize script to build my fixture (user_fixture.php):


<?php

class UserFixture extends CakeTestFixture {
 var $name = 'User';
 var $records = array(
  array(
   'id' => '1',
   'email' => 'andy@xyz.com',
   'password' => 'd16fb36f0911f878998c136191af705e',
   'status' => '1',
   'created' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
   'modified' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
  ),
  array(
   'id' => '2',
   'email' => 'joe@joe.com',
   'password' => '900150983cd24fb0d6963f7d28e17f72',
   'status' => '1',
   'created' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
   'modified' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
  ),
  array(
   'id' => '3',
   'email' => 'badboy@badboy.com',
   'password' => '202cb962ac59075b964b07152d234b70',
   'status' => '0',
   'created' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
   'modified' => '2008-11-24 17:38:25',
  ),
 );
}
?>

Here is the Unit Test itself (user.test.php):


<?php
App::import('Model', 'User');

class UserTestCase extends CakeTestCase {
 var $fixtures = array( 'user' );
 
 function setUp() {
    $this->User = ClassRegistry::init('User');
   }

 function testEnabledUsers() {
  $this->loadFixtures('User');
    
  $result = $this->User->enabledUsers(array('id', 'email'));
  $expected = array(
   array('UserTest' => array( 'id' => 1, 'email' => 'andy@xyz.com' )),
   array('UserTest' => array( 'id' => 2, 'email' => 'joe@joe.com' ))
  );
  $this->assertEqual($result, $expected);
 }
}
?>

And here are the errors I get when I run the test:

Error
Unexpected PHP error [Undefined property: UserFixture::$fields] severity [E_NOTICE] in [C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake\tests\lib\cake_test_fixture.php line 158]

C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\\user.test.php -> UserTestCase -> start
Error
Unexpected PHP error [mysqli_query() [function.mysqli-query]: Empty query] severity [E_WARNING] in [C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake\libs\model\datasources\dbo\dbo_mysqli.php line 146]

C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\\user.test.php -> UserTestCase -> start
Failed
Equal expectation fails with member [0] as key list [User] does not match key list [UserTest] at [C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\user.test.php line 19]

C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\\user.test.php -> UserTestCase -> testEnabledUsers
Error
Unexpected PHP error [Undefined property: UserFixture::$fields] severity [E_NOTICE] in [C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake\tests\lib\cake_test_fixture.php line 158]

C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\\user.test.php -> UserTestCase -> end
Error
Unexpected PHP error [mysqli_query() [function.mysqli-query]: Empty query] severity [E_WARNING] in [C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake\libs\model\datasources\dbo\dbo_mysqli.php line 146]

C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\reuser\tests\cases\models\\user.test.php -> UserTestCase -> end

Wow! :(
I've had a poke around in some of the core files putting debug statements all over to try and understand why this doesn't work. But I guess I've come the full circle now back to the "Convention over Configuration". This is the most basic of Unit Tests on a simple findAll function in the most basic of models. The reason this is not working has to be that I'm breaking the convention somewhere. Maybe in file naming or in the way I'm including the fixture?

I'd be very grateful if someone could get me out of this mess by pointing out what I've got wrong.
Thanks,
Andy

Here we go...

2008-11-25T15:36:00.000Z

As a part time computer science student I now have just under 12 months to submit my final year project.

I'll be following an agile, Scrum based, test-driven development methodology to build an amazing web application!

To help me on my way I've reviewed and then selected a PHP framework:

My choice CakePHP.

Wish me luck :)

one year eating cake

CakePHP Unit Test Model Woes :(

Here we go...