Q1: What is the difference between Feature and Unit tests in Laravel?
Unit Tests: Test a small, isolated piece of code (like a single method) without touching the database or external services. Fast execution.
Feature Tests: Test a larger slice of the application, often starting from an HTTP request. They interact with the database, session, and other framework features.
Q2: How do you test code that interacts with external APIs?
Mocking: You should never hit real external APIs in your test suite.
Http::fake(): Laravel provides a fluent way to mock the HTTP client.
Http::fake([
'github.com/*' => Http::response(['foo' => 'bar'], 200),
]);Q3: What is Pest PHP?
Concept: A modern testing framework built on top of PHPUnit with a focus on simplicity and developer experience.
Syntax: It uses a functional, Jest-like syntax (it('does something', function () { ... })) which is often more readable than the class-based structure of PHPUnit.
Q4: How do you test database transactions?
RefreshDatabase Trait: This trait automatically wraps each test case in a database transaction. After the test finishes, the transaction is rolled back, leaving the database in its original state.
Benefit: It is much faster than migrating and resetting the database for every test.
Q5: What is Dusk?
Tool: Laravel Dusk provides an expressive, easy-to-use browser automation and testing API.
Usage: It uses a real Chrome browser (via ChromeDriver) to test JavaScript-heavy applications (SPA, Vue/React components) that cannot be tested with standard PHPUnit HTTP tests.
Q6: How do you assert that an event was dispatched?
Event Fake: Use Event::fake() to prevent actual event listeners from running.
Event::fake();
// Perform action...
Event::assertDispatched(OrderShipped::class, function ($e) use ($order) {
return $e->order->id === $order->id;
});