Unit-Testing APIs and JSONs

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Testing is crucial in every application, especially if that application needs to be maintained. So, in this lesson, let's see how we can test APIs.

Before creating a test for the API, let's quickly set up our application.

It is crucial to run tests on a separate database from your main one, because it wipes and re-creates the database with every test. The easiest way is to uncomment two lines in the phpunit.xml file, then your tests will run on an in-memory SQLite database.

phpunit.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<phpunit xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="vendor/phpunit/phpunit/phpunit.xsd"
         bootstrap="vendor/autoload.php"
         colors="true"
>
    <testsuites>
        <testsuite name="Unit">
            <directory>tests/Unit</directory>
        </testsuite>
        <testsuite name="Feature">
            <directory>tests/Feature</directory>
        </testsuite>
    </testsuites>
    <source>
        <include>
            <directory>app</directory>
        </include>
    </source>
    <php>
        <env name="APP_ENV" value="testing"/>
        <env name="APP_MAINTENANCE_DRIVER" value="file"/>
        <env name="BCRYPT_ROUNDS" value="4"/>
        <env name="CACHE_STORE" value="array"/> 
        <!-- <env name="DB_CONNECTION" value="sqlite"/> -->
        <!-- <env name="DB_DATABASE" value=":memory:"/> -->
        <env name="MAIL_MAILER" value="array"/>
        <env name="PULSE_ENABLED" value="false"/>
        <env name="QUEUE_CONNECTION" value="sync"/>
        <env name="SESSION_DRIVER" value="array"/>
        <env name="TELESCOPE_ENABLED" value="false"/>
    </php>
</phpunit>

Next, you must know that every test class must have Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase trait to create tables. Without this trait, you will get the error message no such table:.

Now, let's create a test class.

php artisan make:test Api/CategoryTest

Similar to Controllers, we create tests inside...