Mocking Models

[amcarthur]

Can someone shed some light on how to mock models in Phalcon? I can't find any official documentation or examples online. I want to mock a model so that I don't need a real database during the test. The test calls a controller action which uses models. I'm using PHPUnit (and Mockery). Here's what I've tried so far, based off this link I found:

final class MyControllerTest extends TestCase
{
 public function setUp()
    {
        parent::setUp();

        $this->di = new FactoryDefault();
        DI::reset();
        DI::setDefault($this->di);

        $this->di->setShared('modelsManager', new Manager());

       // This produces a single 'map-mymodel.php' file. There is no meta-* file generated.
        $this->di->setShared(
            'modelsMetadata',
            new Files([
                'metaDataDir' => __DIR__ . '/../test-resources/metadata/',
            ])
        );

        $con = $this->createPartialMock('\\Phalcon\\Db\\Adapter\\Pdo\\Mysql', [
            'getDialect',
            'query',
            'execute',
        ]);

        $dialect = $this->createPartialMock('\\Phalcon\\Db\\Dialect\\Mysql', [
            'select',
        ]);

        $results = $this->createPartialMock('\\Phalcon\\Db\\Result\\Pdo', [
            'numRows',
            'setFetchMode',
            'fetchall',
        ]);

        $results
            ->expects($this->any())

            ->method('numRows')

            ->will($this->returnValue(1));

        $results
            ->expects($this->any())

            ->method('fetchall')

            ->will($this->returnValue([[]]));

        $dialect
            ->expects($this->any())

            ->method('select');

        $con->expects($this->any())

            ->method('getDialect')

            ->will($this->returnValue($dialect));

        $con->expects($this->any())

            ->method('query')

            ->will($this->returnValue($results));

        $con->expects($this->any())->method('execute');

        $this->di->setShared('db', $con);
  }

  public function test_myAction()
  {
    // ...
    $actual = $this->controller->myAction()->getContent();
    // ...
  }
}

This results in the error:

Trying to call method tableexists on a non-object.

If I mock tableexists, it then complains of missing describecolumns, which to me seems like my model manager mock isn't really working as expected and not mocking the meta info for the model. As noted in my code snippet above, the Metadata Files service only generates the map-* php file, not the meta-* php file, which is probably why.

[amcarthur]

Some progress, I added the Files Metadata service to the actual website (i.e. where I bootstrap/register services and stuff) and it dumped out the meta-* php files for models when I navigate to relevant pages. I guess it needed a real database connection to initially generate those, which makes sense.

What I'm still confused about is that my tests worked in Phalcon 2 without mocking modelsManager, modelsMetadata and the database. Only after upgrading to Phalcon 3 did I run into this issue of the models trying to look up metadata in tests. Also, some tests still work in Phalcon 3 without mocking those services, and they too use models. The inconsistency is very confusing.

[amcarthur]

Confirmed that this fixes it for me, so marking as answered. However, I'd love to know if there is an easier / more standard way to mock models / databases.