You might often hear developers say that you should write tests. Great, let’s go! But what should you test and where do you start? I don’t know all the answers, but here are some tips for getting started.
What should I test?
Creating multi-worksheet Excel files with Simple Excel
Recently I had to create a large data export for a project. I like using Spatie’s Simple Excel package to do this as it is very simple to use and works well when exporting large amounts of data to a CSV or Excel file with the ability to stream a download to the browser. This particular project had an additional requirement though, exporting multiple worksheet’s of data at once. Luckily, this package allows you to do this too.
The PHP foreach loop
An alternative to the for loop, the foreach loop is used to iterate or loop over an array. The foreach loop allows you to loop through the items in the array without setting a limit for it to stop like you do in a for loop.
The PHP for loop
If you have something you want to repeat then consider using a PHP for loop, saving you from copying and pasting the same code multiple times. Adding the code into a loop means you only have to write it once, and you also only have to maintain the code in one place in future.
Refactoring to Laravel 8 Class Model Factories
Laravel 8 introduced new class based model factories and if you have an existing project you can use the legacy factories package to keep using the old factories. I have tended to keep the factories as they were and continue development, but after working on a fresh Laravel 8 project and using the new class based syntax I decided to go back and update the factories in the older Laravel apps. This article explains how I went about refactoring the factories to classes.
The PHP array
Arrays are a useful toolt to store multiple values. You can access a specific value in an array using a key. By default, if you don’t specify keys, they will be numeric and start at zero (not one);
Latest Posts
Building a VS Code Extension for Gutenberg blocks
I have been tasked with building a new website using WordPress. The last time I used WordPress was a few years ago and involved using Advanced Custom Fields to build custom pages and layouts. Things have changed a lot over the years and now there is the built in Gutenberg editor, which uses blocks to create a custom layout and add content. The trouble was, there didn’t seem to be great support in Visual Studio Code for the blocks, as they use HTML comments.
Using Pest to test Laravel Livewire validation rules
Last year I wrote a post about testing Laravel Livewire validation rules with PHP Unit. This post uses the same techniques as that post, but shows how to transfer it to Pest instead of PHP Unit.
Mocking window.location in Jest
Recently I had to write some tests for a piece of JavaScript code that used window.location. This left me trying to figure out how to mock the window.location so that I could pass in dummy data and ensure that the data I got back was what was expected. Here was how I managed to solve the issue.
