Compare entities based on their ID during unit test

Question

I'm trying to create unit test for my application but I would like to have some advice.

I have these methods :

/**
 * This methods check if the user can apply to the team, it search if he have a username for the game and if he doesn't already applied for another team in the same tournament
 * @param User $user
 * @param Team $team
 * @return bool|string
 */
public function canApply(User $user, Team $team) {
    if ($user->getGamingUsername($team->getTournament()->getGame()) === null) {
        return "Vous devez avoir un nom d'utilisateur pour pouvoir vous inscrire, renseignez le dans \"Mon profil\"";
    } else if (false !== $teamAlreadyIn = $this->isAlreadyApplicant($user, $team)) {
        return "Vous avez déjà postulé pour une équipe pour ce tournoi : 
        <a href=\"".$this->router->generate("mgd_team_show", array("id" => $teamAlreadyIn->getId()))."\">".htmlspecialchars($teamAlreadyIn->getName())."</a>";
    }
    return true;
}

/**
 * This method search if the user is already in a team for the same tournament than the one passed in argument
 * @param User $user
 * @param Team $team
 * @return bool|Team|mixed
 */
public function isAlreadyApplicant($user, Team $team) {
    if (!$user || !$this->authorizationChecker->isGranted("ROLE_USER")) {
        return false;
    }

    foreach ($user->getApplications() as $userTeam) {
        /** @var Team $userTeam */
        if ($userTeam->getTournament()->getId() === $team->getTournament()->getId()) {
            return $userTeam;
        }
    }

    foreach ($user->getTeams() as $userTeam) {
        /** @var Team $userTeam */
        if ($userTeam->getTournament()->getId() === $team->getTournament()->getId()) {
            return $userTeam;
        }
    }

    foreach ($user->getManagedTeam() as $userTeam) {
        /** @var Team $userTeam */
        if ($userTeam->getTournament()->getId() === $team->getTournament()->getId()) {
            return $userTeam;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

As you can see, the first (canApply) call the second one (isAlreadyApplicant).

But when I try to test canApply, I have some trouble : this method call isAlreadyApplicant and in this one I compare based on the id the tournaments.

In my test class, I can't "->setId()" because it's a private method. So how am I supposed to handle this? Is it better to get an element from my database?

At the moment, one of my testMethod looks like this :

/**
 * The user is connected and try to apply to a team and applied for another team for another game
 */
public function testCanApplySecondTeamAnotherGame() {
    $user = new User();
    $game = new Game();
    $anotherGame = new Game();

    $team = new Team();
    $anotherTeam = new Team();

    $tournament = new TournamentTeam();
    $anotherTournament = new TournamentTeam();

    $team->setTournament($tournament);
    $anotherTeam->setTournament($anotherTournament);

    $tournament->setGame($game);
    $anotherTournament->setGame($anotherGame);

    $game->setName("TestGame");
    $anotherGame->setName("AnotherGame");

    $gamingProfile = new GamingProfile();
    $gamingProfile->setGame($game);
    $gamingProfile->setUsername("TestGameUsername");

    $anotherGamingProfile = new GamingProfile();
    $anotherGamingProfile->setGame($anotherGame);
    $anotherGamingProfile->setUsername("TestAnotherGameUsername");

    $user->setGamingProfiles(new ArrayCollection(array($gamingProfile, $anotherGamingProfile)));

    $user->addApplication($anotherTeam);
    $user->addTeam($anotherTeam);

    $router = $this->createMock(Router::class);
    $authorizationChecker = $this->createMock(AuthorizationCheckerInterface::class);
    $authorizationChecker->method("isGranted")->willReturn(true);

    $applicationChecker = new ApplicationChecker($router, $authorizationChecker);
    //Here, we try to apply to a team
    $this->assertTrue($applicationChecker->canApply($user, $team));

}

If you have any question, don't hesitate! Have a good day!

Answer 1

This code is more coupled and will be difficult to test in an easy way.

I advise you to take method isAlreadyApplicant and move into a service for example.

After with the dependency injection inject the new service into your actual service (I hope is a service).

Dependency Injection Documentation

So now you can mock the new service with method isAlreadyApplicant.

This is for unit test.

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If you need functional tests you can create a class, set the id and use it instead of create new Team() so you can control your class because you aren't testing the entity class but the function.

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Another solution is to mock library to set private properties into your tests but I don't like this solution