Error extending Laravel's abstract TestCase class (error is saying that my extended class must be abstract)

Question

I'm hoping somebody out there can help me. I am using laravel 4 and I'm writing my first unit tests for a while but am running into trouble. I'm trying to extend the TestCase class but I'm getting the following error:

PHP Fatal error:  Class registrationTest contains 1 abstract method and must therefore be declared abstract or implement the remaining methods (Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase::createApplication) in /home/john/www/projects/MyPainChart.com/app/tests/registrationTest.php on line 4

Now if I have this right then the error is referring to the fact that is a method is abstract then the class it's in must also be abstract. As you can see from below the TestCase class it is abstract. I have searched for this error but have drawn a blank.

Trying to follow this cast on Laracasts https://laracasts.com/lessons/tdd-by-example and although you have to be a subscriber to watch the video the file is underneath it and as you can see I am doing nothing different to Jeffrey Way.

My Test:

<?php

class registrationTests extends \Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase
{

    /**
     * Make sure the registration page loads
     * @test
     */
    public function make_sure_the_registration_page_loads_ok()
    {
        $this->assertTrue(true);
    }
}

The beginning of the TestCase class:

<?php namespace Illuminate\Foundation\Testing;

use Illuminate\View\View;
use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;

abstract class TestCase extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {

By the way - the Laravel testing class is not autoloaded by default and so I have tried both the fully qualified class name and use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing and then just extending TestCase. I know it can see it aswhen I don't fully qualify the name it complains that the class cannot be found. I've also tried:

composer dump-autoload

and

composer update

Any help appreciated

Answer 1

According to your error message: Class registrationTest contains 1 abstract method the Base Class contains an abstract method and when a Child Class extends another class with abstract methods then the child class should implement the abstract methods available in Base class. So, registrationTest is child class and \Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase is the base class and it contains an abstract method:

An abstract method in \Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase:

abstract public function createApplication();

So, in your child class/registrationTest you must implement this method:

public function createApplication(){
    //...
}

But, actually you don't need to directly extend the \Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase because in app/tests folder there is a class TestCase/TestCase.php and you can extend this class instead:

// In app/tests folder
class registrationTest extends TestCase {
    //...
}

The TestCase.php class looks like this:

class TestCase extends Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase {

public function createApplication()
{
        $unitTesting = true;
        $testEnvironment = 'testing';
        return require __DIR__.'/../../bootstrap/start.php';
    }
}

Notice that, TestCase has implemented that abstract method createApplication so you don't need to extend it in your class. You should use TestCase class as base class to create test cases. So, create your tests in app/tests folder and create classes like:

class registrationTest extends TestCase {
    public function testBasicExample()
    {
        $crawler = $this->client->request('GET', '/');
        $this->assertTrue($this->client->getResponse()->isOk());
    }
}

Read Class Abstraction.