How do you test your commands? (phpunit)

It may be helpful to review how laravel core console commands are tested: https://github.com/laravel/framework/tree/5.2/tests/Console

Thanks for the hint, I should have started from there!! Will post updates :)

@alariva here is a post I wrote a few months ago which may be of help. It may be that you are missing:

->setLaravel(app());

@ifpingram , thanks for the hint. As I'm new to some of these concepts, it took me a while to get it working... however, it seems I finally got to the solution. I believe I followed your steps, correctly. Would you help me validate that? (Yep, I know it can be refactored, I'll get over that once everything looks fine :) )

<?php

use App\Console\Commands\SendBusinessReport;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseTransactions;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Application as ConsoleApplication;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;
use Timegridio\Concierge\Models\Appointment;

class SendBusinessReportTest extends TestCase
{
    use DatabaseTransactions;
    use CreateBusiness, CreateUser, CreateContact, CreateAppointment, CreateService, CreateVacancy;

    /** @test */
    public function it_reports_to_all_businesses()
    {
        $this->arrangeFixture();

        $application = new ConsoleApplication();

        $testedCommand = $this->app->make(SendBusinessReport::class);
        $testedCommand->setLaravel(app());
        $application->add($testedCommand);

        $command = $application->find('business:report');

        $commandTester = new CommandTester($command);

        $commandTester->execute([
            'command' => $command->getName(),
        ]);

        $this->assertRegExp('/Scanning all businesses../', $commandTester->getDisplay());
    }

    /**
     * Arrange Fixture.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    protected function arrangeFixture()
    {
        $this->owner = $this->createUser();
        $this->issuer = $this->createUser();

        $this->business = $this->createBusiness();
        $this->business->owners()->save($this->owner);

        $this->contact = $this->createContact();
        $this->contact->user()->associate($this->issuer);

        $this->service = $this->makeService();
        $this->business->services()->save($this->service);

        $this->vacancy = $this->makeVacancy();
        $this->vacancy->service()->associate($this->service);

        $this->business->vacancies()->save($this->vacancy);

        $appointment = $this->makeAppointment($this->business, $this->issuer, $this->contact, [
            'status' => Appointment::STATUS_CONFIRMED,
            ]);
    }
}

alariva@trinsic ~/timegrid.io/app $ phpunit --filter=it_reports_to_all_businesses
PHPUnit 5.4.6 by Sebastian Bergmann and contributors.

.                                                                   1 / 1 (100%)

Time: 813 ms, Memory: 30.00MB

OK (1 test, 1 assertion)

Finally, a refactored version with 2 test cases

You may find the working code here

<?php

use App\Console\Commands\SendBusinessReport;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\DatabaseTransactions;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Application as ConsoleApplication;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;
use Timegridio\Concierge\Models\Appointment;

class SendBusinessReportTest extends TestCase
{
    use DatabaseTransactions;
    use CreateBusiness, CreateUser, CreateContact, CreateAppointment;

    protected $command;

    protected $commandTester;

    /**
     * @var \Timegridio\Concierge\Models\Business
     */
    protected $business;

    public function setUp()
    {
        parent::setUp();

        $application = new ConsoleApplication();

        $testedCommand = $this->app->make(SendBusinessReport::class);
        $testedCommand->setLaravel(app());
        $application->add($testedCommand);

        $this->command = $application->find('business:report');

        $this->commandTester = new CommandTester($this->command);

        $this->arrangeFixture();
    }

    /** @test */
    public function it_reports_to_all_businesses()
    {
        $this->commandTester->execute([
            'command' => $this->command->getName(),
        ]);

        $this->assertRegExp('/Scanning all businesses../', $this->commandTester->getDisplay());
    }

    /** @test */
    public function it_reports_to_a_single_business()
    {
        $this->commandTester->execute([
            'command'  => $this->command->getName(),
            'business' => $this->business->id,
        ]);

        $this->assertRegExp("/Sending to businessId:{$this->business->id}/", $this->commandTester->getDisplay());
    }

    protected function arrangeFixture()
    {
        $issuer = $this->createUser();

        $this->business = $this->createBusiness();

        $contact = $this->createContact();

        $this->makeAppointment($this->business, $issuer, $contact, [
            'status' => Appointment::STATUS_CONFIRMED,
            ]);
    }
}

@alariva looks good, although I think the naming of arrangeFixture() is wrong; it should be seedAppointment() or similar, as what you are doing is seeding the system prior to testing the report...

I shouldn't be resurrecting an old thread I suppose, but I thought i'd throw in a different approach that I use as it can simplify things.

$this->artisan('whatever-the-command-is');

will call the command for you. So for example if testing a daily admin report, you could seed the database, mock the Mailer and then call something like

$this->artisan('my-company:daily-report');

Of course this is assuming you are extending TestCase

@bjones2015 this is correct, but IIRC this does not allow the output of the command to be retrieved, hence the need to dig a little deeper and return the following for the assertions:

$this->commandTester->getDisplay();