How to ensure that Laravel 5.5 is running a test?

Question

I have some methods in my app that I check for if (env('APP_DEBUG')) on and return true (or whatever) if we're in debug mode rather than doing a certain DB or API call.

The problem is when I run phpunit, the app is still in debug mode, so it doesn't "really" run the test against the actual code.

Is it possible to check if a test is being run, so I could do if (env('APP_DEBUG') || $testing)? Or is there a better way to handle this case?

Answer 1

You're looking for App::runningUnitTests().

Remember that you shouldn't use env() outside your configuration files, instead use config('app.debug'). This ensures that your code works with a cached configuration.

It's impossible to answer "is there a better way" without having more details.

Answer 2

Rather than update your application to check if tests are running, you could disable debug mode in your test environment by updating your phpunit.xml file:

<php>
    <env name="APP_ENV" value="testing"/>
    <env name="CACHE_DRIVER" value="array"/>
    <env name="SESSION_DRIVER" value="array"/>
    <env name="QUEUE_DRIVER" value="sync"/>
    <env name="APP_DEBUG" value="false"/>
</php>

Also, you should not use the env function outside of configuration files. The env function will just return null if you are using the config cache

https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/configuration#configuration-caching

If you execute the config:cache command during your deployment process, you should be sure that you are only calling the env function from within your configuration files.

Use config('app.debug') instead of env('APP_DEBUG').