How to Customize the Bootstrap Process before Running Tests ¶

Sometimes when running tests, you need to do additional bootstrap work before running those tests. For example, if you're running a functional test and have introduced a new translation resource, then you will need to clear your cache before running those tests.

When installing testing using Symfony Flex, it already created a tests/bootstrap.php file that is run by PHPUnit before your tests.

You can modify this file to add custom logic:

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// tests/bootstrap.php
  use Symfony\Component\Dotenv\Dotenv;

  require dirname(__DIR__).'/vendor/autoload.php';

  if (file_exists(dirname(__DIR__).'/config/bootstrap.php')) {
      require dirname(__DIR__).'/config/bootstrap.php';
  } elseif (method_exists(Dotenv::class, 'bootEnv')) {
      (new Dotenv())->bootEnv(dirname(__DIR__).'/.env');
  }

+ if (isset($_ENV['BOOTSTRAP_CLEAR_CACHE_ENV'])) {
+     // executes the "php bin/console cache:clear" command
+     passthru(sprintf(
+         'APP_ENV=%s php "%s/../bin/console" cache:clear --no-warmup',
+         $_ENV['BOOTSTRAP_CLEAR_CACHE_ENV'],
+         __DIR__
+     ));
+ }

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<!-- phpunit.xml.dist -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<phpunit
    bootstrap="tests/bootstrap.php"
>
    <!-- ... -->
</phpunit>

Now, you can update the phpunit.xml.dist file to declare the custom environment variable introduced to tests/bootstrap.php:

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<!-- phpunit.xml.dist -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<phpunit>
    <php>
        <env name="BOOTSTRAP_CLEAR_CACHE_ENV" value="test"/>
        <!-- ... -->
    </php>

    <!-- ... -->
</phpunit>

Now, when running vendor/bin/phpunit, the cache will be cleared automatically by the bootstrap file before running all tests.