Testing fixtures with addReference in Symfony 4 - symfony

Question

I'm working on a Symfony's project and i have some issues while testing with phpunit.
I have StatusFixtures with addReference to be used in BriefFixtures and this work correctly when i do doctrine:fixtures:load (with correct dependency to load Status before Brief).
But, when i run my tests, using those fixtures, the following error is coming : Error: Call to a member function addReference() on null
My StatusFixtures.php
<?php
namespace App\DataFixtures;
use App\Entity\Status;
use Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Fixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
class StatusFixtures extends Fixture
{
const Status_Reference = 'status';
public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
{
// some code to assign values
$manager->persist($activeStatus);
$this->addReference(self::Status_Reference, $activeStatus);
$manager->flush();
}
}
My BriefFixtures.php
<?php
namespace App\DataFixtures;
use App\Entity\Brief;
use Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Fixture;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\DependentFixtureInterface;
class BriefFixtures extends Fixture implements DependentFixtureInterface
{
public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
{
// some code to assign values
$briefValid->setStatus($this->getReference(StatusFixtures::Status_Reference));
$manager->persist($briefValid);
$manager->flush();
}
public function getDependencies()
{
return array(
StatusFixtures::class,
);
}
}
And i'm loading fixtures this way in my tests
private $entityManager;
protected function setUp()
{
$kernel = self::bootKernel();
$this->entityManager = $kernel->getContainer()
->get('doctrine')
->getManager();
$status = new StatusFixtures();
$status->load($this->entityManager);
$fixture = new BriefFixtures();
$fixture->load($this->entityManager);
}
And my error Error: Call to a member function addReference() on null
$this from StatusFixtures seems to be null, but i don't understand why this correctly works when i'm loading fixtures and no more when i'm running my tests.
Maybe something is missing in setUp() ?
Thank you for your help

Answer 1

The problem lies in the Symfony documentation for Fixtures. It makes you feel like
$fixture->load($this->entityManager); will simply load the fixture, but that is not true. It is simple when you use the command doctrine:fixtures:load because it does more than just above load function call.
Going with third party solutions will be the quickest and probably the best solution. Here are few libraries that you can use:
liip/LiipTestFixturesBundle
hautelook/AliceBundle (thanks michal)
The error you are getting comes from ReferenceRepository object that is supposed to store the references, but it is null. Who actually sets up this repository, it is Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Executor\AbstractExecutor. What you need is a Loader that loads the fixture by creating everything needed for it to work. One of those loaders is Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Loader\SymfonyFixturesLoader that your command doctrine:fixtures:load is using. You can use that loader or write your own loader. You can see that what this loader has to do to provide you the expected results. But that still is not it, you also need Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Executor\ORMExecutor because your Fixture is a database entity and you need to persist it. You can see that
how doctrine:fixtures:load makes use of SymfonyFixturesLoader and ORMExecutor to provide you expected result. So, you will have to write your own solution for this. I worte a Loader for myself before because I didn't want to go with third party solutions. I am putting it below. It may not serve your purpose exactly, but it will give you ideas how to write your own Loader if you want to.
namespace App\Tests\Extra;
use Doctrine\Bundle\FixturesBundle\Fixture;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Executor\ORMExecutor;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Loader;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Purger\ORMPurger;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ManagerRegistry;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Platforms\MySqlPlatform;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManagerInterface;
use App\Tests\Extra\Exception\FixtureNotLoadedException;
class FixtureLoader
{
private $entityManager;
private $loader;
private $registry;
public function __construct(
EntityManagerInterface $entityManager,
ManagerRegistry $registry
) {
$this->entityManager = $entityManager;
$this->registry = $registry;
}
public function loadFixtures(array $classNames) : void
{
$this->loader = new Loader();
foreach ($classNames as $className) {
$this->loader->addFixture(new $className());
}
$executor = new ORMExecutor($this->entityManager, new ORMPurger());
$executor->execute($this->loader->getFixtures());
}
public function getFixture(string $className) : Fixture
{
if ($this->loader == null) {
throw new FixtureNotLoadedException(
sprintf(
'The fixture %s must be loaded before you can access it.',
$className
)
);
}
return $this->loader->getFixture($className);
}
private function getPurger() : ORMPurger
{
$purger = new ORMPurger($this->entityManager);
$purger->setPurgeMode(ORMPurger::PURGE_MODE_TRUNCATE);
return $purger;
}
public function cleanDatabase() : void
{
$connection = $this->entityManager->getConnection();
$mysql = ('ORM' === $this->registry->getName()
&& $connection->getDatabasePlatform() instanceof MySqlPlatform);
if ($mysql) {
$connection->query('SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0');
}
$this->getPurger()->purge();
if ($mysql) {
$connection->query('SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1');
}
}
}