Configure and test Laravel Task Scheduling

Question

Environment

• Laravel Version : 5.1.45 (LTS)

• PHP Version : 5.6.1

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Description

I'm trying to run a command every 1 minute using Laravel Task Scheduling.

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Attempt

I've added this line to my cron tab file

* * * * * php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Here is my /app/Console/Kernel.php

<?php

namespace App\Console;

use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel as ConsoleKernel;

class Kernel extends ConsoleKernel
{
    /**
     * The Artisan commands provided by your application.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $commands = [
        \App\Console\Commands\Inspire::class,
    ];

    /**
     * Define the application's command schedule.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule  $schedule
     * @return void
     */
    protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
    {
        $schedule->command('inspire')->hourly();
        $schedule->command('echo "Happy New Year!" ')->everyMinute(); //<---- ADD HERE        }
}

I've added this line $schedule->command('echo "Happy New Year!" ')->everyMinute();

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Question

How do I test this ?

How do I trigger my echo to display ?

How do I know if what I did is not wrong ?

Answer 1

command() runs an artisan command. What you're trying to achieve - issuing a command to the OS - is done by exec('echo "Happy New Year!"')

Testing depends on what you want to test:

• Whether the scheduler (every minute) is working?

In this case, you don't have to. It is tested in the original framework code.

• Whether the command succeeds?

Well, you can manually run php artisan schedule:run and see the output.

The scheduler does not produce any output on default (>> /dev/null 2>&1). You can, however, redirect the output of the runned scripts to any file by chaining writeOutputTo() or appendOutputTo() (https://laravel.com/docs/5.1/scheduling#task-output).

---

For more complex logic, write a console command instead (https://laravel.com/docs/5.1/artisan#writing-commands) and use command() - this way you can write nice, testable code.

Answer 2

If you want to unit test the scheduling of events you can use this example. It is based on the default inspire command:

public function testIsAvailableInTheScheduler()
{
    /** @var \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule $schedule */
    $schedule = app()->make(\Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule::class);

    $events = collect($schedule->events())->filter(function (\Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Event $event) {
        return stripos($event->command, 'YourCommandHere');
    });

    if ($events->count() == 0) {
        $this->fail('No events found');
    }

    $events->each(function (\Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Event $event) {
        // This example is for hourly commands.
        $this->assertEquals('0 * * * * *', $event->expression);
    });
}