Download the PHP package directorytree/dummy without Composer

Generate PHP class instances populated with dummy data using Faker

Index

• Requirements
• Installation
• Introduction
• Setup
  • HasFactory Trait
  • Class Factory
• Usage
  • Factory States
  • Factory Callbacks
  • Factory Sequences
  • Factory Collections

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.0

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

Introduction

Consider you have a class representing a restaurant reservation:

To make dummy instances of this class during testing, you have to manually populate it with dummy data.

This can quickly get out of hand as your class grows, and you may find yourself writing the same dummy data generation code over and over again.

Dummy provides you with a simple way to generate dummy instances of your classes using a simple API:

Setup

Dummy provides you two different ways to generate classes with dummy data.

HasFactory Trait

The HasFactory trait is applied directly to the class you would like to generate dummy instances of.

To use the HasFactory trait, you must implement the toFactoryInstance and getFactoryDefinition methods:

[!note] The HasFactory trait does not provide you the capability of defining state methods or callbacks. If you need this functionality, you should define a separate Factory class instead.

Once implemented, you may call the Reservation::factory() method to create a new dummy factory:

Class Factory

If you need more control over the dummy data generation process, you may use the Factory class.

The Factory class is used to generate dummy instances of a class using a separate factory class definition.

To use the Factory class, you must extend it with your own and override the definition and generate methods:

Usage

Once you've defined a factory, you can generate dummy instances of your class using the make method:

To add or override attributes in your definition, you may pass an array of attributes to the make method:

To generate multiple instances of the class, you may use the count method:

This will return a Illuminate\SupportCollection instance containing the generated classes.

Factory States

State manipulation methods allow you to define discrete modifications that can be applied to your dummy factories in any combination.

For example, your App\Factories\Reservation factory might contain a tomorrow state method that modifies one of its default attribute values:

Factory Callbacks

Factory callbacks are registered using the afterMaking method and allow you to perform additional tasks after making or creating a class. You should register these callbacks by defining a configure method on your factory class. This method will be automatically called when the factory is instantiated:

Factory Sequences

Sometimes you may wish to alternate the value of a given attribute for each generated class.

You may accomplish this by defining a state transformation as a sequence:

Factory Collections

By default, when making more than one dummy class, an instance of Illuminate\Support\Collection will be returned.

If you need to customize the collection of classes generated by a factory, you may override the collect method: