Codeception Cept tests _bootstrap variables

Question

Codeception default _bootstrap.php file states:

<?php
// Here you can initialize variables that will be available to your tests

So I wanted to initialize a variable inside of it:

<?php

$a = 5;

However, when I use it my SomeAcceptanceCept:

<?php
// ....
$I->fillField('description', $a);

I get: ErrorException: Undefined variable: a

I did var_dump in _bootstrap.php and it indeed get's ran once before acceptance tests, but variables from it are not available in my tests.

I can't seem to find any documentation on this.

I'm actually trying to initialize Faker instance to use in my tests.

Answer 1

I find the documentation on this to be quite confusing. I was attempting to do the exact same thing to no avail. So I ended up using Fixtures by putting this in the _bootstrap.php file:

use Codeception\Util\Fixtures;
use Faker\Factory;

$fake = Factory::create();
Fixtures::add('fake', $fake);

(You could also use a separate fixtures.php file and include it in your test.)

Which allows you to get the faker object or anything else like this:

Fixtures::get('fake');

The strange thing is that if you look at the Fixtures docs it actually mentions using the Faker library to create tests data in the bootstrap file.