8

I was writing a very basic test for a Laravel Artisan Console Command, like this:

$this->artisan("my-command", ["--some-option" => "some-value"])
     ->expectsOutput("the expected output");

The test didn't pass. I got really troubled because "the expected output" was exactly what the command was outputting when executed mannualy.

But that's ok, I just have to inspect what the command output actually is when executed through automated tests, right? But wait, how do I do that?

I tried the following:

$output = new BufferedConsoleOutput();
Artisan::call("my-command", ["--some-option", "some-value"], $output);
// dd($output->fetch()
$this->assertTrue($output->fetch() === "the expected output");

But $output->fetch() seems to be always empty.

In brief: How do I print the actual output of a Laravel command in the context of a test?

miken32
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Vinícius Ferraz
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  • I'm struggling with this myself and it very annoying that the `expectsOutput(..)` function of Laravel doesn't throw a failed message as "expected X, but got Y" but only returns an useless "X was not printed." message. You don't have any clue why the assertion fails and the only way to find out is to do a time consuming manual check. I know that the `Artisan::output();` command will only return the output of the last executed command. Maybe this is also happening when passing an outputInterface, that the instance is cleared when passed to other commands. – Sven van Zoelen Jun 17 '21 at 08:36
  • Do you execute other commands in your command? – Sven van Zoelen Jun 17 '21 at 08:36

1 Answers1

16

This isn't something I would want to set up and leave in your tests, but if you prevent Laravel from mocking the console output, you can capture it for inspection.

Assuming you have this test that fails:

public function testStuffDoesntBreak(): void
{
    $this->artisan("my-command", ["--some-option" => "some-value"])
        ->expectsOutput("the expected output");
}

You can rewrite it to this:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;
...

public function testStuffDoesntBreak(): void
{
    $this->withoutMockingConsoleOutput()
        ->artisan("my-command", ["--some-option" => "some-value"]);
    // capture the text output from the command
    $result = Artisan::output();
    // use standard text assertions
    $this->assertEquals("the expected output", $result);
}

When you've disabled console mocking, the artisan() method stops being fluent and instead returns the exit code of the command. But it does allow the Artisan facade to access its output. Whether you want to rewrite tests or just change them on the fly in case of an error is personal preference. I've done the latter, as I'd rather not miss out on features like expectsTable().

miken32
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