Today at work I implemented Parallel Testing to one of our projects. Perfect timing as we also just recently upgraded to Laravel 8 (coming from Laravel 7).
I was certain that Parallel Testing is available in Laravel 8 as I followed the development of this feature since the beginning of this year. However, after installing `brianium/paratest` package to our app and running the command `php artisan test --parallel` I encountered this error:
This got me confused, so I checked the Laravel 8 documentation for Parallel Testing and it was there.
[https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/testing#running-tests-in-parallel](https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/testing#running-tests-in-parallel)
However, this doesn't solve the issue as nothing in the documentation mentions this error.
So I decided to dig a bit further. And as it turns out, Parallel Testing was originally created for Laravel 9 and then backported to Laravel 8. Due to this, earlier versions of `nunomaduro/collision` package (5.0, 5.1, 5.2 - which what I was using at the time) had a restriction to only use `--parallel` option on Laravel 9, but version 5.3 removed that restriction.
[This link shows comparison of collison version 5.2 to 5.3.](https://github.com/nunomaduro/collision/compare/v5.2.0...v5.3.0) Checkout line 74 of `src/Adapters/Laravel/Commands/TestCommand.php` file for the removal of restriction.
So I promptly updated `nunomaduro/collision` to `^5.3` on my project and fixed the issue.
While at it I also took the liberty of creating a [pull request to laravel documentation](https://github.com/laravel/docs/pull/7022) so that this issue is properly documented and other developers don't waste their time in the future.
Peace!
Laravel team has recently announced that they are moving from a 6 month major release cycle to 12 month major release cycle. This is due to many users feeling that versions were being released frequently since adopting the *"semantic versioning"* standard even though the cycle speed stayed the same.
And because of this decision, the team decided to backport parallel testing to Laravel 8, which was supposed to be a major feature of the Laravel 9 release.
Developers like us can now enjoy the benefits of faster running tests as of Laravel 8.25!
We can read the full announcement here: [Laravel: New Release Schedule](https://blog.laravel.com/updates-to-laravels-versioning-policy)
Here's a preview of tests in one of my major projects before and after implementing parallel test.
As you can see, that's about 50% increase in time it took to complete the entire test suite and more than 80% reduction on memory usage.
I don't know about you but that is insane!
You can read full details of the new feature here [Laravel: Parallel Testing Is Now Available](https://blog.laravel.com/laravel-parallel-testing-is-now-available)
TIL that you do not need the full class name (or the full method name) when filtering tests to run.
I was working on some documentations writing today when I ran my tests with a mistyped `User` filter and to my surprise, it loaded and ran all tests with the word `User` on class names and methods.
Below is how it looked like after I ran the command (some tests have been redacted)..
```
➜ p2p git:(develop) ./vendor/bin/phpunit --filter=User
PHPUnit 8.5.8 by Sebastian Bergmann and contributors.
Batch Import Job (Tests\Unit\BatchImportJob)
✔ It belongs to a user
Company (Tests\Unit\Company)
✔ It belongs to many users
Contract (Tests\Unit\Contract)
✔ It belongs to many users
Media Security Check (Tests\Unit\MediaSecurityCheck)
✔ It belongs to a user
User Setting (Tests\Unit\UserSetting)
✔ It belongs to a supervisor
✔ It belongs to a user
✔ It belongs to a delegate
Companies Deactivation (Tests\Feature\Admin\CompaniesDeactivation)
✔ Deactivating a company also deactivates its users
User Change Password (Tests\Feature\Admin\UserChangePassword)
✔ Can change password of a user
✔ Can resend email password reset to user
User Contracts (Tests\Feature\Admin\UserContracts)
✔ Can attach a contract to a user
User Deactivations (Tests\Feature\Admin\UserDeactivations)
✔ Can deactivate a user
✔ Deactivated users cannot login
✔ Can reactivate a user
User Export (Tests\Feature\Admin\UserExport)
✔ Can export users
User Settings (Tests\Feature\Admin\UserSettings)
✔ Can update user settings
Users (Tests\Feature\Client\Users)
✔ Can list all users
✔ Can get user details
✔ Can only get details of users in the same company
User Filters (Tests\Feature\Filters\UserFilters)
✔ It can load user companies
✔ It can be filtered by company association
User Picklists (Tests\Feature\Supplier\UserPicklists)
✔ Can update picklist
Users (Tests\Feature\Supplier\Users)
✔ Can list all users
[Some tests have been redacted]
Time: 44.64 seconds, Memory: 86.50 MB
OK (83 tests, 204 assertions)
```
New to Laravel 8 is the ability to quite literally travel in time using the Wormhole class.
Although this class was only recently implemented on version 8, the time travelling concept is already apparent using the `Carbon::setTestNow()` which is a feature available in `Carbon\Carbon` package, and is in fact behind this class. Personally, I was able to utilize this feature when I was working on a Loans Management app, which made simulating past and future scenarios (i.e: loans terms and payments) in my tests quite a breeze.
Let's take a look at how we can make time travelling work in Laravel 8.
## The `InteractsWithTime` trait
In Laravel 8, a new trait for testing has been created as a sort of wrapper for the Wormhole class.
The InteractsWithTime trait is within `Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\Concerns` namespace (be careful when importing and not to confuse it with other traits with the same name but in a different namespace).
So we can just use it in our test classes like so..
namespace Tests\Feature;
use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\Concerns\InteractsWithTime;
class TimeTravellingTest extends TestCase
{
use InteractsWithTime;
}
Once we've used it on our test class we then gain access to various utility methods..
// Travel 8 days in the future
$this->travel(8)->days(); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to the current date + 8 days
// Travel 10 minutes in the future
$this->travel(10)->minutes(); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to the current time + 8 minutes
// Travel 5 months in the past
$this->travel(-5)->months(); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to the current date - 5 months
We can also travel to a specific date..
$this->travelTo('2019-02-14 12:00:00'); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to '2019-02-14 12:00:00'
Just make sure to **ALWAYS GO BACK TO THE PRESENT** after doing time travelling to not get stuck in the past or present.
$this->travelBack(); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to the current date
That means we can also time travel, execute a callback and return to the current date consecutively..
// Option 1..
$this->travel(8)->days(function () {
dd(now()); // This will result to the current date + 8 days
// After executing this callback, now() will automatically go back to the current date
});
// Option 2..
$this->travelTo('2019-02-14 12:00:00', function () {
// Carbon::now() or now() will result to '2019-02-14 12:00:00'
echo 'Happy Valentines Day!';
// After executing this callback, Carbon::now() or now()
// will automatically go back to the current date
});
## The `Wormhole::class`
The `Wormhole::class` is namespaced within `Illuminate\Foundation\Testing`. Looking at it, its just a single file class that accepts an integer value.
This means we can just new it up like a traditional php class, give it a value and call the methods within it, like so..
$wormhole = new Wormhole(8);
$wormhole->days(); // Carbon::now() or now() will result to the current date + 8 days
Wormhole::back(); // Go back to the present time..
And again we can execute a callback within the Wormhole method..
$wormhole = new Wormhole(8);
$wormhole->days(function () {
dd(now()); // This will result to the current date + 8 days
// After executing this callback, now() will automatically go back to the current date
});
This is useful if you wish to do time travelling outside your tests and don't want to use the trait.
And there you have it, time travelling in Laravel is now online.
Hope you learned something from this article. Cheers!
Some small and practical testing tips from yours truly.
1. If your tests are not hitting the database, remove the `use RefreshDatabase` statement. This will greatly speed up your test as it won't run migrations.
```
class ExampleTest
{
use RefreshDatabase;
...
}
```
2. If you want to see details when you run your tests but don't want to use 3rd party printer package, you can utilize the `--testdox` flag in PHPUnit. This flag will show which test class and method is currently running.
```
phpunit --testdox
```
3. Getting overwhelmed with too many errors when you run a group of tests or your entire test suite? Use the `--stop-on-failure` flag in PHPUnit. This will cause the test to stop on first occurence of failure.
```
phpunit --stop-on-failure
```
Happy testing!
