Database table not available in test as service providers run before use DatabaseMigrations?

Hi,

I do some tests with PHPUnit on different views. Part of the view variables, i. e. $topics, is loaded through a service provider like the following:

class ComposerServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * Bootstrap the application services.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function boot()
    {

        if (Schema::hasTable('topics')) {
            $topics = Topic::all();
            View::share(compact('topics'));
        }

    }

    /**
     * Register the application services.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function register()
    {
        //
    }
}

Unfortunately running the test throws an error as the variable $topics is undefined. Further debugging showed me that the table "topics" is not available within the ComposerServiceProvider yet, when running tests.

What am I doing wrong?

Cheers,

Christian