laravel4cookbook

Controller Testing 352
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You can find a boring description at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_testing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_testing
Acceptance Tests
Acceptance tests are test which look at a much broader range of functionality. These are often called
end-to-end tests because they are concerned with the correct functionality over a range of functions,
methods classes etc.
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You can find a boring description at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing
Am I Writing Unit Or Functional Tests?
When it comes to writing tests in Laravel 4, developers often think they are writing unit tests when
they are actually writing functional tests. The difference is small but significant.
Laravel provides a set of test classes (a base TestCase class, and an ExampleTest class). If you
base your tests off of these, you are probably writing functional tests. The TestCase class actually
initialises the Laravel 4 framework. If your code depends on that being the case (accessing the aliases,
service providers etc.) then your tests aren’t isolated. They have dependencies and they need to be
run in order.
When your tests only require the underlying PHPUnit or PHPSpec classes, then you may be writing
unit tests.
How does this affect us? Well - if your goal is to write functional tests, and you have decent test
coverage then you’re doing ok. But if you want to write true unit tests, then you need to pay attention
to how your code is constructed. If you’re using the handy aliases, which Laravel provides, then
writing unit tests may be tough.
That should be enough theory to get us started. Let’s take a look at some code…
Fat Controllers
It’s not uncommon to find controllers with actions resembling the following: