[FIXED] Symfony 2 functional tests with mocked services

Issue

I have a controller I'd like to create functional tests for. This controller makes HTTP requests to an external API via a MyApiClient class. I need to mock out this MyApiClient class, so I can test how my controller responds for given responses (e.g. what will it do if the MyApiClient class returns a 500 response).

I have no problems creating a mocked version of the MyApiClient class via the standard PHPUnit mockbuilder: The problem I'm having is getting my controller to use this object for more than one request.

I'm currently doing the following in my test:

class ApplicationControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{

    public function testSomething()
    {
        $client = static::createClient();

        $apiClient = $this->getMockMyApiClient();

        $client->getContainer()->set('myapiclient', $apiClient);

        $client->request('GET', '/my/url/here');

        // Some assertions: Mocked API client returns 500 as expected.

        $client->request('GET', '/my/url/here');

        // Some assertions: Mocked API client is not used: Actual MyApiClient instance is being used instead.
    }

    protected function getMockMyApiClient()
    {
        $client = $this->getMockBuilder('Namespace\Of\MyApiClient')
            ->setMethods(array('doSomething'))
            ->getMock();

        $client->expects($this->any())
            ->method('doSomething')
            ->will($this->returnValue(500));

        return $apiClient;
    }
}

It seems as though the container is being rebuilt when the second request is made, causing the MyApiClient to be instantiated again. The MyApiClient class is configured to be a service via an annotation (using the JMS DI Extra Bundle) and injected into a property of the controller via an annotation.

I'd split each request out into its own test to work around doing this if I could, but unfortunately I can't: I need to make a request to the controller via a GET action and then POST the form it brings back. I'd like to do this for two reasons:

1) The form uses CSRF protection, so if I just POST directly to the form without using the crawler to submit it, the form fails the CSRF check.

2) Testing that the form generates the correct POST request when it is submitted is a bonus.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this?

EDIT:

This can be expressed in the following unit test that does not depend on any of my code, so may be clearer:

public function testAMockServiceCanBeAccessedByMultipleRequests()
{
    $client = static::createClient();

    // Set the container to contain an instance of stdClass at key 'testing123'.
    $keyName = 'testing123';
    $client->getContainer()->set($keyName, new \stdClass());

    // Check our object is still set on the container.
    $this->assertEquals('stdClass', get_class($client->getContainer()->get($keyName))); // Passes.

    $client->request('GET', '/any/url/');

    $this->assertEquals('stdClass', get_class($client->getContainer()->get($keyName))); // Passes.

    $client->request('GET', '/any/url/');

    $this->assertEquals('stdClass', get_class($client->getContainer()->get($keyName))); // Fails.
}

This test fails, even if I call $client->getContainer()->set($keyName, new \stdClass()); immediately before the second call to request()

Solution

I thought I'd jump in here. Chrisc, I think what you want is here:

https://github.com/PolishSymfonyCommunity/SymfonyMockerContainer

I agree with your general approach, configuring this in the service container as a parameter is really not a good approach. The whole idea is to be able to mock this dynamically during individual test runs.

Answered By - genexp