Testing email from shell Cakephp 3.x - shell

Question

I want to make test cases, with phpunit and cakephp 3.x, shell that send email. This is my function into shell:
class CompaniesShellTest extends TestCase
{
public function monthlySubscription()
{
/* .... */
$email = new Email('staff');
try {
$email->template('Companies.alert_renew_success', 'base')
->theme('Backend')
->emailFormat('html')
->profile(['ElasticMail' => ['channel' => ['alert_renew_success']]])
->to($user->username)
//->to('dario#example.com')
->subject('Eseguito rinnovo mensile abbonamento')
->viewVars(['company' => $company, 'user' => $user])
->send();
} catch (Exception $e) {
debug($e);
}
/* ... */
}
}
In my testing class i have this functions
/**
* setUp method
*
* #return void
*/
public function setUp()
{
parent::setUp();
$this->io = $this->getMockBuilder('Cake\Console\ConsoleIo')->getMock();
$this->CompaniesShell = new CompaniesShell($this->io);
}
/**
* tearDown method
*
* #return void
*/
public function tearDown()
{
unset($this->CompaniesShell);
parent::tearDown();
}
/**
* Test monthlySubscription method
*
* #return void
*/
public function testMonthlySubscription()
{
$email = $this->getMock('Cake\Mailer\Email', array('subject', 'from', 'to', 'send'));
$email->expects($this->exactly(3))->method('send')->will($this->returnValue(true));
$this->CompaniesShell->MonthlySubscription();
}
But this doesn't work.
Any ideas? I want to check if the mails are successfully sent and how many times.

Answer 1

The way you wrote your code won't work.
$email = new Email('staff');
And:
$email = $this->getMock('Cake\Mailer\Email', array('subject', 'from', 'to', 'send'));
How do you expect the class you call to magically replace the $email variable with your mock object? You'll need to refactor your code.
This is how I would do it:
First implement a custom mailer like SubscriptionMailer. Put your mail code into this mailer class. That makes sure you have nice separated and reuseable code.
public function getMailer() {
return new SubscriptionMailer();
}
In your test mock the getMailer() method of your shell and return your email mock.
$mockShell->expects($this->any())
->method('getMailer')
->will($this->returnValue($mailerMock));
You can then do the expectation you already have.
$email->expects($this->exactly(3))->method('send')->will($this->returnValue(true));
Also depending on what your shell method is doing, maybe it is better to send the email in the afterSave callback (again using the custom mailer class) of a model object (table) that is processing the data from your shell. Check the example at the end of this page.