How to test validation errors throw exact error and message in laravel unit tests

Question

How to test specific validation errors in php unit thrown in validation error ? with below code we could check session has errors, but not the exact error

$this->assertSessionHasErrors();

Possible duplicate of [Unit Test Laravel's FormRequest](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36978147/unit-test-laravels-formrequest) — Yevgeniy Afanasyev, Mar 28 '19 at 02:34
> I'm using phpunit 7.5 and Lumen 5.8 - when using a unit test for your `Request` or rules, you can do `$this->expectException$this->expectException('Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException');` and `$this->expectExceptionMessage = "The name field is required";` - see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18647836/how-do-i-test-for-an-exact-exception-message-rather-than-a-substring-with-phpu — Sandra, Jun 04 '20 at 12:47
Note: the exception doesn't contain the validation message! it just says `The given data was invalid` — Sandra, Jun 04 '20 at 12:59

score 22 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 18 '17 at 12:00

22

assertSessionHasErrors can receive an array, as documented:

$this->assertSessionHasErrors([
    'field' => 'Field error message.'
]);

answered Sep 18 '17 at 12:00

Gabriel Caruso

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17

you don't really need to put your error into session to test the validator. You can take errors from `ValidationException` like so `$ex->errors()` – Yevgeniy Afanasyev Mar 28 '19 at 02:53
2

Only the keys are used here. This doesn't test the error message, only that the field has a message. – Curtis Blackwell Oct 22 '19 at 18:37
4

I think that might have been true at one point, but as of 6.x, you **can** pass values to test specific error messages, in addition to the fields/keys themselves. PR'd that within Laravel docs: https://laravel.com/docs/6.x/http-tests#assert-session-has-errors – cdwyer Oct 27 '19 at 15:55

score 18 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 27 '17 at 08:53

18

Got the answer

    $errors = session('errors');
    $this->assertSessionHasErrors();
    $this->assertEquals($errors->get('name')[0],"Your error message for validation");

$errors is MessageBag object which stored in laravel session when validation error thrown using $errors->get('name') you could see all the validation errors as an array

answered Mar 27 '17 at 08:53

User123456

2,492
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2

For Laravel 6.x (and probably earlier versions), check `assertSessionHasErrors`: https://laravel.com/docs/6.x/http-tests#assert-session-has-errors – cdwyer Oct 27 '19 at 15:56
you may need to start your session in the test's `setUp()` – Sandra Jun 04 '20 at 13:00
$key = config('session.keys.errors'); $errors = session( $key ); – Yevgeniy Afanasyev Aug 06 '20 at 06:39

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered May 02 '20 at 08:04

5

You may use the combination of assertStatus and assertJson

...
->assertStatus(422)
->assertJson([
     'errors' => [
          'field' => [
               'Error message'  
          ]
      ]
]);

answered May 02 '20 at 08:04

Foued MOUSSI

4,643
3
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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 02 '20 at 23:46

You can use $response->assertSessionHasErrors('key')

https://laravel.com/docs/7.x/http-tests#assert-session-has-errors

an example for required attribute will be

$response = $this->json('POST', '/api/courses', $this->data([
    'name' => '',
    'api_token' => $this->user->api_token
]));

$response->assertSessionHasErrors('name');

You can add an extra assertion, to make sure that no entry was added to the database, in this case "assert no course was added"

$this->assertCount(0, Course::all());

For multiple required attributes you may use a loop something like the following:

collect(['name', 'description', 'amount'])->each(function ($field) {
    $response = $this->json('POST', '/api/courses', $this->data([
        $field => '',
        'api_token' => $this->user->api_token
    ]));

    $response->assertSessionHasErrors($field);
    $this->assertCount(0, Course::all());
});

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 20 '21 at 08:31

First I use

$this->post()

instead of

$this->jsonPost()

Dont know why, for certain reason, the session would not come out.

Then I just use

$response->assertSessionHasErrors('field_name', 'Error Message!');

To find out what are the error message, you must dump it

$response->dumpSession();

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 21 '20 at 01:11

There is also a more elegant way in my opinion:

If you throw an exception via the class GeneralException you can check in a unit test if the session has a flash_danger from throwing a exception.

Lets do a practical example: We want to test that the admin cannot activate an already activated catalogue item.

Test function

public function an_admin_cannot_activate_an_activated_catalogue()
{
    $catalogue = factory(Catalogue::class)->states('active')->create();
    $response = $this->get("/admin/questionnaire/catalogue/{$catalogue->id}/activate");
    $response->assertSessionHas(['flash_danger' => __('The catalogue item is already activated.')]);
}

Model/Repro function

If it is activated we throw an Exception which then can be checked by the test function.

public function activate(Catalogue $catalogue) : Catalogue
{
    if ($catalogue->is_active) {
        throw new GeneralException(__('The catalogue item is already activated.'));
    }

    $catalogue->is_active = 1;
    $activated = $catalogue->save();

    if($activated) {
        return $catalogue;
    }
}

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 21 '22 at 20:16

1

actually you can easily throw errors from validation using dd() and session('errors')

since errors bag is stored in session you could add dd(session('errors')) in your unit tests to see which fields you are missing.

and finally you can write more proper test by adding $response->assertSessionHasErrors('field_name');

edited Jan 21 '22 at 20:16

Coola

2,934
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answered Jun 27 '20 at 07:49

jamelwa

31
1
4

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 28 '23 at 21:21

Laravel 7; In my case, I needed to ensure there was no error.

But below did ignore form-validation errors (at least mine).

$response->assertSessionHasNoErrors();

Hence I created a custom assert function in base TestCase class, like:

use PHPUnit\Framework\Constraint\RegularExpression;

// ...

public static function assertNoErrorReport(TestResponse $response)
{
    $error = static::getViewError($response);
    if ( ! empty($error)) {
        $this->fail('View contains error:' . PHP_EOL . $error);
    }
    $response->assertSessionHasNoErrors();
}

public function assertHasErrorRegExp(string $pattern, TestResponse $response, string $message = '')
{
    $error = static::getViewError($response);
    static::assertThat($error, new RegularExpression($pattern),
        empty($message) ? $error : $message);
}

public static function getViewError(TestResponse $response)
{
    $content = $response->getOriginalContent();
    if ( ! $content) {
        static::fail('View content missing.');
    }
    if ($content instanceof View) {
        $data = $content->gatherData();
        $error = $data['error'] ?? $data['errors'] ?? null;

        // Casts array to string.
        if (is_array($error)) {
            $error = '[' . join(', ', $error) . ']';
        }
        // Casts Error-bag to string.
        $error = '' . $error;
        if ($error === '[]') {
            return null;
        }
    } else {
        static::fail('Response is not a View.');
    }

    return $data;
}

However, my assertHasErrorRegExp(...) could be used for OP's case.

How to test validation errors throw exact error and message in laravel unit tests

8 Answers8