How to specify a different .env file for phpunit in Laravel 5?

Question

I have a .env file containing my database connection details, as is normal for Laravel 5. I want to override these for testing, which I can do in phpunit.xml. However, doing this seems to go against the philosophy of .env which is not to commit environmental configurations, particularly passwords.

Is it possible to have something like .env.testing and tell phpunit.xml to read from that?

Polyandrist

This will probably help: https://mcmap.net/q/392716/-laravel-5-app-always-using-39-testing-39-environment-configuration – Bevatron

I've just updated my answer, I hope it helps – Bencion

Have a look my post here - Might give you some clue. – Carlton

"philosophy of .env which is not to commit environmental configurations," Why not just configure the environment variables on the test environment? – Oxpecker

@SanderVisser because it's not a separate environment. I'm running the tests on the same machine as developing the site. – Polyandrist

Answer 1

You could override the .env file being used in your TestCase file, where the framework is booted for testing.

More specific:

tests/TestCase.php

/**
 * Creates the application.
 *
 * @return \Illuminate\Foundation\Application
 */
public function createApplication()
{
    /* @var \Illuminate\Foundation\Application $app */
    $app = require __DIR__ . '/../bootstrap/app.php';

    $app->loadEnvironmentFrom('.env.testing'); // specify the file to use for environment, must be run before boostrap

    $app->make('Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel')->bootstrap();

    return $app;
}

All the tests extending TestCase will use this configuration file.

Please note that any setting defined in phpunit.xml will override this configuration.

Update

Starting Laravel5.4, the createApplication function is no longer found in tests\TestCase. It has been moved to tests\CreatesApplication trait.

Conformation

Your answer looked promising, but for some reason it's still loading .env. – Semipro

@SeánHayes make sure you run $app->loadEnvironmentFrom(..) before boostrap() otherwise it will use the default .env – Conformation

This kinda looks like a bad practice. – Bencion

@DimitriAcosta, why do you think that? – Conformation

Because you shouldn't be changing the code for your tests. – Bencion

I don't get what you're saying. Would you like to elaborate? – Conformation

This should be the correct answer. Doing so we do not have to change the production code. Thanks a lot @Bogdan! – Gullah

@DimitriAcosta IMHO, this approach will also work, if you do not want secret environment variables added to version control. – Gustatory

@DimitriAcosta To a junior like yourself, yes, it does look like bad practice. To experienced developers, it's good. We can run our tests under multiple environments. This means we can use a env file for SQLite, and a separate one for MySQL, just as a small example. Your answer is spam, because it's not what was asked. – Liszt

Answer 2

Copy your .env to .env.testing, then edit the .env.testing file and change the APP_ENV parameter to make it like this APP_ENV=testing this way you will be able to specify your settings int this new file

In case you don't want to create a new .env.testing file you have to specify your variables in the phpunit.xml in the php section with the values you need, something like this

<php>
    <env name="APP_ENV" value="testing"/>
    <env name="CACHE_DRIVER" value="array"/>
    <env name="SESSION_DRIVER" value="array"/>
    <env name="QUEUE_DRIVER" value="sync"/>
    <env name="DB_CONNECTION" value="sqlite"/>
    <env name="DB_DATABASE" value="testing"/>
</php>

Just use the key values in the name section and the value of that key in the value section.

For this example I am specifying phpunit to use an sqlite database with the name of testing.

By the way in config/database.php I added this 'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'mysql'), to use mysql by default unless I specify something diferent, as in this case.

Bencion

I know you can do that in phpunit.xml, I said that in my question. What I want to avoid is specifying database connection details in there as then I'll be committing them. – Polyandrist

Whereas this is just for tests purposes it shouldn't matter if you place the values in the phpunit.xml, what I recomend is to use another database engine, like sqlite or something completly different to the one you are using in development, in my case I do that and I never commit the credentials to my real database, just the credentials to the test database, in this case with sqlite. You should check out the documentation for this kind of issues cause this is the right way to do that. – Bencion

The problem with that is that I'm using SQL queries in my code (not using an ORM) so the queries could be subtly different on a different database engine. – Polyandrist

Maybe you've should start by mentioning that cause your questions is kind of ambiguous – Bencion

.env.testing is an convention of Laravel? – Metalline

Yes you could actually take a look at the documentation to learn more about the .env.testing file laravel.com/docs/5.8/testing – Bencion

Answer 3

Create a local database on your dev machine, e.g. 'local_test_db'

Create a new .env.testing file.

DB_DATABASE=local_test_db
DB_USERNAME=root

Make sure your phpunit.xml file has at least this one env var:

<php>
    <env name="APP_ENV" value="testing"/>
</php>

Lastly your base testcase (TestCase.php) should run a migration to populate the db with tables:

public function createApplication()
{

    $app = require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';

    $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel::class)->bootstrap();

    return $app;
}


public function setUp()
{
    parent::setUp();
    Artisan::call('migrate');
}

public function tearDown()
{
    Artisan::call('migrate:reset');
    parent::tearDown();
}

Chilopod

"Make sure your phpunit.xml file has at least this one env var..." This is the one magical piece that Laravel documentation and other answers here don't make clear. Thanks very much! – Misapprehension

@JoelMellon happy to help. – Chilopod

In my case, I use Pest testing. Applied .env.testing & updated phpunit.xml. Running ./vendor/bin/pest works. Thanks for this. – Pork

Answer 4

This is 2019.

I had this issues for so long until I was able to figure it out.

And here is my assumption:

If you are also finding it difficult to make your PHPUnit.xml talk with your .env.testing file, then you are likely using PHPStorm!

If this is true, continue reading.

If not, nope...this won't help.

Ok...

Here you go:

1. Go to Settings of your PHPStorm or just simply press Ctrl + Alt + S.
2. Go to Languages And Frameworks >> PHP >> Test Frameworks
3. Under Test Runner tab, click Default configuration file and select (by clicking the folder icon) the path of your project's PHPUnit.xml file.

What this does is to make all your changes in the xml file take effect. So, go ahead, create the .env.testing file, create your preferred DB config variables for test...and try running your tests again!

Atterbury

Answer 5

From this link

Method 1

Step 1: Create New Test Database Connection on Database/Config.php as below:

return [
    ... 

    'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'db'),    

    'connections' => [
        'sqlite_testing_db' => [
            'driver' => 'sqlite',
            'database' => storage_path().'/testing_database.sqlite',           
            'prefix' => '',
        ],

        /**************** OR ******************/

        'testing_db' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('TEST_DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
            'database' => env('TEST_DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('TEST_DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('TEST_DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => false,
        ],

        /** Production or database DB **/
        'db' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'host' => env('TEST_DB_HOST', 'localhost'),
            'database' => env('TEST_DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('TEST_DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('TEST_DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'strict' => false,
        ],
    ],
];

Step 2: Specify the Database Credential on .env file

TEST_DB_HOST=localhost
TEST_DB_DATABASE=laravel
TEST_DB_USERNAME=root
TEST_DB_PASSWORD=rootwdp

Step 3: Specify test db conection to be used on phpunit.xml.

<env name="DB_CONNECTION" value="testing_db"/>
          OR Below If you prefer sqlite
<env name="DB_CONNECTION" value="sqlite_testing_db"/>                

Step 4: Migrate database to this new testing database - if you choose to use Database Transaction to Rollback insertion on the table.

php artisan migrate --database=testing_db

//If using sqlite
touch storage/testing_database.sqlite
php artisan migrate --database=sqlite_testing

Step 5: Now, the Unit test with Database Transaction looks like below:

<?php

use App\User;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseTransactions;

class UserTest extends TestCase
{
    use DatabaseTransactions;

    /** @test */
    function it_test_user_can_be_saved()
    {
        factory(User::class, 2)->create();

        $users = User::all();

        $this->assertEquals(2, $users->count());
    }
}

//Run Php Unit
-> vendor/bin/phpunit --color tests/acceptance/model/UserTest.php

Note: If you prefer not to use Database Transaction, you can use setup and teardown method on TestCase.php class to migrate and rollback the database as below:

<?php

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;

class TestCase extends Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase
{
    ...

    public function setUp()
    {
        parent::setUp();
        Artisan::call('migrate');
    }

    public function tearDown()
    {
        Artisan::call('migrate:reset');
        parent::tearDown();
    }
}

Eades

I like this way much better and more reasonable – Brogan

Answer 6

In your app.php change the Dotenv section

$envFile = 'testing' === env('APP_ENV') ? '.env.testing' : null;
try {
    (new Dotenv\Dotenv(__DIR__ . '/../', $envFile))->load();
} catch (Dotenv\Exception\InvalidPathException $e) {
    //
}

This will work hence PHPUnit changes the env before loading your app..so if running tests you will have the env already at testing

Tilt

Thanks, this answer worked for Lumen v5.6, the others not (maybe there are some differences while bootstrapping Lumen vs Laravel) – Fp

Answer 7

Been struggling with this for a few months now and just came across this Github issue today. From the solutions proposed there, here's what you should do in your CreatesApplication.php file (to delete the cached config in order to have Laravel load the test environment):

/**
 * Creates the application.
 *
 * @return \Illuminate\Foundation\Application
 */
public function createApplication()
{
    $app = require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';

    $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel::class)->bootstrap();

    $this->clearCache(); // NEW LINE -- Testing doesn't work properly with cached stuff.

    return $app;
}

/**
 * Clears Laravel Cache.
 */
protected function clearCache()
{
    $commands = ['clear-compiled', 'cache:clear', 'view:clear', 'config:clear', 'route:clear'];
    foreach ($commands as $command) {
        \Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan::call($command);
    }
}

If you're still experiencing this issue after the above modification, you can go further by rebuilding the entire application as follows:

public function createApplication()
{
    $createApp = function() {
        $app = require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';
        $app->make(Kernel::class)->bootstrap();
        return $app;
    };

    $app = $createApp();
    if ($app->environment() !== 'testing') {
        $this->clearCache();
        $app = $createApp();
    }

    return $app;
}

This is working just fine for me.

Throstle

You should NEVER cache ANYTHING when you are developing locally... – Kyle

Answer 8

Updated

For Laravel 5.8 users, you may create a .env.testing file in the root of your project.

Use a different db, like my_app_testing.

So, it will be, in .env

DB_DATABASE=clinical_managment

and in .env.testing

DB_DATABASE=clinical_managment_testing

Then, make config clear.

php artisan config:clear

Re-run the test. In my setup, it works.

Nerynesbit

Answer 9

I did all the steps in @Sambhu Singh answer as well as followed his link. But didn't work for me in L5.5

When migrating, adding/setting APP_ENV to 'testing' in front of the artisan command worked for me:

APP_ENV=testing php artisan migrate --database=sqlite_testing

Mazur

Answer 10

I can't think of a way other than temporarily renaming .env.testing to .env before the unit tests start.

You could put some logic in bootstrap/autoload.php as this is what phpunit uses as it's bootstrap file before loading the application.

Lanni