Question

I’m having a problem with a line of code like:

$user->has('roles', ORM::factory('role', array('name' => 'unverified')))

I can mock the first argument, but can only assert that the 2nd argument returns a class. In some classes I make multiple uses of has and need to be able to test them properly. To be clear, I need to confirm that “unverified” was passed into the factory method of the 2nd argument. Any help is much appreciated.

The class I’m testing:

<?php
/**
 * Policy class to determine if a user can upload a file.
 */
class Policy_File_Upload extends Policy
{
    const NOT_LOGGED_IN = 1;
    const NOT_VERIFIED = 2;

    public function execute(Model_ACL_User $user, array $extra = NULL)
    {
        if ($user->can('login'))
        {
            return self::NOT_LOGGED_IN;
        }
        elseif ($user->has('roles', ORM::factory('role', array('name' => 'unverified'))))
        {
            return self::NOT_VERIFIED;
        }

        return TRUE;
    }
}

and the corresponding test:

public function test_guest()
{
    // User mock
    $user = $this->getMock('Model_User', array('can', 'has'), array(), '', FALSE);
    $user->expects($this->any())->method('can')->with('login')->will($this->returnValue(TRUE));
    $user->expects($this->any())->method('has')->with('roles', $this->logicalOr
    (

    ))
    ->will($this->returnCallback(array($this, 'roles')));


    $policy = new Policy_File_Upload;

    $this->assertSame(Policy_File_Upload::NOT_VERIFIED, $policy->execute($user));
}

Answer 1

To be clear, I need to confirm that “unverified” was passed into the factory method of the 2nd argument.

<?php

public function execute(Model_ACL_User $user, array $extra = NULL)
    [...] ORM::factory('role', array('name' => 'unverified')) [...]

I’m sorry mate, you can’t do that as there is no (sane) way to mock out a static method call.

The argument to why this is a problem are similar to one of Sebastian Bergmanns blog post: Testing-Code-That-Uses-Singletons

There are options like runkit that you could choose to replace the “ORM” class at runtime with a mocked version but thats really painfull.

So there are a couple of options:

You could create something like a Policy_File_Upload_Data_Provider that has a ->getRoles method where you put your ORM access. That would allow you to test your business logic nicely and testing that data access class should be a little easier as it doesn’t to that much (just accessing the orm).

You could Inject your ORM class (or if that doesn’t work out maybe just its name).
Depending on the class its self you should be able to create an instance and call ->factory like it would be a normal method. You could mock that.

If you don’t want that just leaving that in there is also a not SO bad option.

Hope that at least gave you an idea/overview.

---

Additional Links why it’s hard to test statics:

Misko Hevery - Flaw: Brittle Global State & Singletons

Kore Nordmann - Static considered harmful