How to make a second request, a 'new' request in testing

[JBtje]

I I'm trying to make the following feature test:

• Send a request as logged in user to an uri
• Change the user information
• Send a request as the same logged in user to the same uri
• Assert the information has changed

Pseudocode:

class UserTest extends TestCase
{
    use DatabaseMigrations;

    /**
     * @return array
     */
    private function buildDB(): array
    {
        // Fill database with some information
        $user = User::factory()->create( [
            'username' => 'UsernameABC',
        ] );
        $session = $user->createToken( 'web' )->plainTextToken;

        return [$user, $session];
    }

    public function test_1()
    {
        [$user, $session] = $this->buildDB();

        $request = $this->call( 'POST', '/user', [], [], [], [
            'HTTP_ACCEPT'        => 'application/json, text/plain, */*',
            'HTTP_Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $session,
        ] )->json();

        $user->username = 'UsernameOther';
        $user->save();

        $request = $this->call( 'POST', '/user', [], [], [], [
            'HTTP_ACCEPT'        => 'application/json, text/plain, */*',
            'HTTP_Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $session,
        ] )->json();

        // Asserting stuff
        ...
    }

The controller:

    public function user()
    {
        $user = auth()->user();
        echo $user->username . PHP_EOL;
    }

Output of the test:

UsernameABC
UsernameABC

Expected output:

UsernameABC
UsernameOther

The cause of the "problem" can be found in RequestGuard.php

    public function user()
    {
        // If we've already retrieved the user for the current request we can just
        // return it back immediately. We do not want to fetch the user data on
        // every call to this method because that would be tremendously slow.
        if (! is_null($this->user)) {
            return $this->user;
        }

        return $this->user = call_user_func(
            $this->callback, $this->request, $this->getProvider()
        );
    }

By default, during the same session, it will return the "cached" user, so it doesn't query the database each time you use auth()->user(). This is great, since it means the app is faster. But now the question...

How do I make the second requests a different requests, so that auth()->user() is obtained freshly and uses the correct information?

p.s. Im using spatie/laravel-permission

[chuckrincon]

You can reload a fresh model instance from the database using the fresh function.

The controller:

public function user()
{
    $user = auth()->user()->fresh();
    echo $user->username . PHP_EOL;
}

This ensures a new user instance every time you hit the controller function.

[JBtje]

This would work for the test, but also means that when you hit the url, the query is executed twice for no reason. Hence not an option.

[JBtje]

Solution: refresh the user only when the route is called via unit testing. Done by using app()->runningUnitTests() in middleware.

/app/Http/Middleware/UnitTestMiddleware.php

<?php

namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class UnitTestMiddleware
{
    public function handle( Request $request, Closure $next, ...$guards )
    {
        // Refresh the user, in case of unit testing.
        if( app()->runningUnitTests() && auth()->user() ) {
            auth()->setUser( auth()->user()->fresh() );
        }

        return $next( $request );
    }
}

and add the middleware to the $middleware in app/Http/Kernel.php