Laravel Unit Testing - add cookie to request? - phpunit

Question

I want to send a cookie with json POST:
public function testAccessCookie()
{
$response = $this->json('POST', route('publications'))->withCookie(Cookie::create('test'));
//some asserts
}
publications route has some middleware:
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
Log::debug('cookie', [$request->cookies]);
//cookie validation
return $next($request);
}
But while running testAccessCookie(), there is [null] inside log. No cookies attached.
What's wrong?
There is no such problem with real (in-browser) requests.

Answer 1

You can add cookies to calls in tests:
$cookies = ['test' => 'value'];
$response = $this->call('POST', route('publications'), [], $cookies);
See https://laravel.com/api/5.4/Illuminate/Foundation/Testing/Concerns/MakesHttpRequests.html#method_call
However you will run into a cookie encryption problem. You can temporarily disable cookies during testing with:
use Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\EncryptCookies;
/**
* #param array|string $cookies
* #return $this
*/
protected function disableCookiesEncryption($name)
{
$this->app->resolving(EncryptCookies::class,
function ($object) use ($name)
{
$object->disableFor($name);
});
return $this;
}
Adding $this->disableCookiesEncryption('test'); at the start of the test.
You may need to add headers to specify a json response.

Answer 2

This should work in recent versions (Laravel 6):
Either:
$this->disableCookieEncryption();
or:
$cookies = ['test' => encrypt('value', false)];
$response = $this->call('POST', route('publications'), [], $cookies);

Answer 3

Since Laravel 5.2 you get the \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class middleware defined by default in the web middleware group and it will set all unencrypted cookies to null.
Unfortunately all cookies you send with $request->call(), $request->get() and $request->post() in unit testing are usually unencrypted and nothing in the official documentation tells you they need to be encrypted.
If you don't want to call $request->disableCookieEncryption() everytime, as a permanent solution you can simply redefine the isDisabled() method in App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies.php to ignore cookies encryption during unit testing.
Here is the implementation I made for Laravel 6.x, it should work on earlier versions too.
<?php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;
use Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\EncryptCookies as Middleware;
class EncryptCookies extends Middleware
{
/**
* The names of the cookies that should not be encrypted.
*
* #var array
*/
protected $except = [
//
];
public function isDisabled($name)
{
if (app()->runningUnitTests()) {
return true; // Disable cookies encryption/decryption during unit testing
}
return parent::isDisabled($name);
}
}