Why are symfony DOMCrawler objects not properly passed between dependent phpunit tests?

Question

I have a test suite for phpunit for my symfony application. In that test file, I have some dependencies between different tests, and pass a DOMCrawler object between the dependent so that I don't have to navigate to it each time.

However, in taking the approach that I did, It seems that you cannot submit forms with these passed objects, but you can click on the links on them. Is there a reason for this? Is my design just poor and if so, how should I change it? Any feedback is welcome. I've attached some code below.

<?php

namespace someBundle\Tests\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Test\WebTestCase;

/**
 * blah Controller Test
 * 
 */
class BlahControllerTest extends WebTestCase
{

    private $adminUrl;

    /**
     * Constructs basic information for a audit report controller test suite
     *
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->adminUrl = '/admin/';
    }

    /**
     * Starts a test suite 
     *
     * @return Crawler
     */
    public function testAdd()
    {
        // Create a new client to browse the application
        $client = static::createClient();

        // Go to site specific admin url
        $crawler = $client->request('GET', $this->adminUrl);
        $this->assertTrue(200 === $client->getResponse()->getStatusCode());

        // do stuff here

        // goes to edit page
        $crawler = $client->request('GET', $editPage);

        return $crawler;
    }

    /**
     * Tests the edit functionality
     *
     * @param Crawler $crawler Crawler for the show view
     *
     * @depends testAdd
     */
    public function testEdit($crawler)
    {
        // Create a new client to browse the application
        $client = static::createClient();

        //Line below is included if the crawler points to the show view
        //$crawler = $client->click($crawler->selectLink('Edit')->link());

        // Fill in the form and submit it
        $form = $crawler->selectButton('Edit')->form(array(
            $foo => $bar,
        ));

        // The following line doesn't work properly if testEdit is passed the
        // edit page. However, if it is passed the show page, and the 
        // edit link above is clicked, then the form will submit fine.
        $client->submit($form);
        $crawler = $client->followRedirect();

        // more code here...
    }
}

Dependent tests are something to be avoided. If you have a common part to your tests, you should make it part of setUp or have a helper method do it for you. You should always be able to run a single test in isolation and get the expected result. — Louis-Philippe Huberdeau
– Louis-Philippe Huberdeau, Commented Jul 3, 2012 at 13:19

Sgoettschkes · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-03 13:30:30Z

The reason is that as you can see in the WebTestCase class which you extend, a teardown is implemented:

protected function tearDown()
{
    if (null !== static::$kernel) {
        static::$kernel->shutdown();
    }
}

This shutdown of the kernel has many effects. One effect is what you are experiencing. I tried to track down what's exactly happening once, but I didn't get anywhere and just made a mental note that the client and crawler are pretty useless once the shutdown is called.

I would recommend the same thing as Louis: Make your tests independend. Beside that it's not working with the client, think about the time when something breaks on your create page. In effect, your edit page tests also break, although the page itself might be ok.

Depends is normally used to further validate objects like if you would like to test the reponse a bit more in-depth. You would use a depending test and return the response from the first one. In this case, it's also ok that both tests break, because if your create page breaks, of course your response content doesn't look like it should.

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