laravel testing: database reset with seeding

Testing a Laravel application has a low barrier to entry compared to other PHP frameworks . What happens when you want to nuke the database between tests? I thought I’d share a solution here.

feature testing

One of the great features Laravel provides is the ability to refresh your database after each test. This has been really useful, but I needed to test verbs like DELETE and a simple php artisan migrate:fresh isn’t all that useful when you have seeds that add information to your database that your tests rely on.

The class Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase has a method used to action the refresh refreshTestDatabase which just calls out to artisan for the migrate:fresh command. Step in my nice little override:

// tests/ResetsDatabase.php
<?php

namespace Tests;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel; 
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase; 
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabaseState;

trait ResetsDatabase {
    use RefreshDatabase;
    
    protected function refreshTestDatabase()
    {
        if (! RefreshDatabaseState::$migrated) {
            $this->artisan('migrate:fresh', $this->shouldDropViews() ? [
                '--drop-views' => true,
            ] : []);

            $this->artisan('db:seed', []);
            $this->artisan('db:seed', [
                '--class' => 'TestDatabaseSeeder',
            ]);

            $this->app[Kernel::class]->setArtisan(null);

            RefreshDatabaseState::$migrated = true;
        }

        $this->beginDatabaseTransaction();
    }
}

You can use this in your tests the same way you would the RefreshDatabase class. But instead of just refreshing the database, you will get db:seed for free along with any test seeds you want to run.

// tests/Feature/UserApiTest.php
<?php

namespace Tests\Feature;

use Tests\ResetsDatabase; 
use Tests\TestCase;

class UserApiTest extends TestCase {
    use ResetsDatabase;
}

what about dusk?

The same can be achieved in dusk [https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/dusk] with a similar change in the DatabaseMigrations trait provided for resetting the database.

// tests/ResetsDatabaseInDusk.php
<?php

namespace Tests;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel; 
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseMigrations; 
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabaseState;

trait ResetsDatabaseInDusk {
    use DatabaseMigrations;
    
    protected function runDatabaseMigrations()
    {
        $this->artisan('migrate:fresh', [
            '--drop-views' => true,
        ]);

        $this->artisan('db:seed', []);
        $this->artisan('db:seed', [
            '--class' => 'TestDatabaseSeeder',
        ]);

        $this->app[Kernel::class]->setArtisan(null);

        $this->beforeApplicationDestroyed(function () {
            $this->artisan('migrate:rollback');

            RefreshDatabaseState::$migrated = false;
        });
    }
}

This will do the same as the previous trait but for your Browser tests.