In this lesson, I will show you the difference between asserting something with text on the page and asserting the data. Because assertSee() may be dangerous and incorrect.
The Problem
First, let's see why assertSee() could be dangerous. For example, if we create some product with the name Product 1 and search for the product's name on the page.
tests/Feature/ProductsTest.php:
// ... test('homepage contains non empty table', function () { Product::create([ 'name' => 'Product 1', 'price' => 123, ]); get('/products') ->assertStatus(200) ->assertDontSee(__('No products found')) ->assertSee('Product 1'); });But what if the text Product 1 is present somewhere else on that page? So, for this example, let's remove the name from showing in the table and add some text above the table.
resources/views/products/index.blade.php:
// ... <h2>You will see Product 1 and other great products</h2> <table class="min-w-full divide-y divide-gray-200 border"> <thead> <tr> <th class="px-6 py-3 bg-gray-50 text-left"> <span class="text-xs leading-4 font-medium text-gray-500 uppercase tracking-wider">Name</span> </th> <th class="px-6 py-3 bg-gray-50 text-left"> <span class="text-xs leading-4 font-medium text-gray-500 uppercase tracking-wider">Price</span> </th> </tr> </thead> <tbody class="bg-white divide-y divide-gray-200 divide-solid"> @forelse($products as $product) <tr class="bg-white"> <td class="px-6 py-4 whitespace-no-wrap text-sm leading-5 text-gray-900"> {{ $product->name }} </td> <td class="px-6 py-4 whitespace-no-wrap text-sm leading-5 text-gray-900"> ${{ number_format($product->price, 2) }} </td> </tr> @empty <tr class="bg-white"> <td colspan="2" class="px-6 py-4 whitespace-no-wrap text-sm leading-5 text-gray-900"> {{ __('No products found') }} </td> </tr> @endforelse </tbody> </table>// ...If we visit the /products page, we will see that the table name...