PHPunit: testing a Repository - unit-testing

Question

I am testing my repository in Laravel and I came across a few issues, most probably with regards to the structure of my methods.
So, my repository looks like:
<?php
namespace Repositories\User;
use App\Test\Models\Entities\User;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class UserRepository implements UserInterface
{
/**
* #var Model $userModel
*/
protected $userModel;
/**
* Setting our class $userModel to the injected model
*
* #param Model $userModel
* #return UserRepository
*/
public function __construct(Model $userModel)
{
$this->userModel = $userModel;
}
/**
* Returns the User object associated with the userEmail
*
* #param string $userEmail
* #return User | null
*/
public function getUserByEmail($userEmail)
{
// Search by email
$user = $this->userModel
->where('email', '=', strtolower($userEmail))
->first();
if ($user) {
return $user->first();
}
return null;
}
}
/**
* #param $id
* #param $email
* #param $source
*
* #dataProvider usersDataProvider
*/
public function testGetUserByEmail($id, $email, $source)
{
$user = new User();
$user->id = $id;
$user->email = $email;
$user->user_source_id = $source;
$this->user->shouldReceive('getUserByEmail')->once()
->andReturn($user);
}
I am quite new working with Mockery and am just wondering whether I am following the correct approach in order to test my getUserByEmail($email) method. Please bare in mind that (as expected) getUserByEmail($email) makes a call to the Database.
Also, this is the message that I receive:
PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function connection() on null in /private/var/www/ff-php-prelaunch/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Eloquent/Model.php, which probably implies that there is no initialized connection to the DB.
UPDATE
Btw, my setUp() is as follows:
public function setUp()
{
$this->user = Mockery::mock('App\Test\Models\Entities\User');
parent::setUp();
}

Answer 1

You probably don't extend the default TestCase class provided by Laravel in the tests directory. Your environment is not correct and you have no connection to the database.
If you don't want to actually query the database you should use Mockery to create a mock of your dependencies (here $userModel). You basically create a Mock the following way, I didn't test this code but the general idea is here.
protected function setUp() {
parent::setUp();
$userModelMockedMethods = [
'where' => 'some return'
];
// This is our dependency mock
$userModelMock = Mockery::mock(Model::class, $userModelMockedMethods);
// this mock now will return 'some return' if you call the `where` method
// on it. If you wish the where method to return something callable, you
// should return another mock instead of a string
// This replaces the mock in the dependency manager.
$this->app->instance(Model::class, $UserModelMock);
}