Laravel VolDB

A volunteer database for events written using the Laravel 5.6 framework

Dependencies

1. A webserver that supports PHP (nginx and php-fpm recommended)
2. mysql
3. node.js and npm installed on your system
4. php
   • ext-mbstring (apt install php-mbstring)
   • ext-dom (apt install php-dom)
   • ext-mysql (apt instal php-mysql)
5. composer, the PHP package manager
6. laravel, the projects PHP framework
7. redis, if you want to use websockets

Installing

1. Git clone this repo
2. Set laravel/public/ as your document root
3. Run composer install within the laravel folder
4. Run npm install within the laravel folder (Note: currently only works with Node v10)
5. Run cp .env.example .env and configure DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME, and DB_PASSWORD
   • Note: You must set this up ahead of time, an easy guide for Ubuntu users is available.
6. Run php artisan migrate within the laravel folder

Setup / Configuration

1. Configure your database and email settings in the .env file
2. run php artisan key:generate to generate an application key for Laravel
3. Optionally, configure your queue and broadcast drivers. If you want to use websockets, you'll need to use redis for broadcasting
4. In the laravel/resources/js/ folder, copy config.example.js and rename it to config.js
5. Optionally, you may configure your websocket server to use a specific hostname, however by default it will use the current domain of the site
6. Run npm run build within the laravel folder.
7. Run php artisan db:seed within the laravel folder to populate the database with user roles

Alright! Now everything is compiled and the site is functional. You can register accounts, create events, and sign up for shifts. If you want to use websockets for a couple extra features (auto-updating when shifts are taken or departments are changed), follow these steps:

Extra websockets steps

1. In your .env file, make sure redis is installed and configured as the broadcast driver, and that the variable WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED is set to true
2. Run npm install within the node folder
3. Ensure that the websocket parameters in laravel/resources/js/config.js are correct
4. Run node websocket-server.js within the node folder
5. Use a screen session or a process manager like pm2 to keep the websocket server running indefinitely

MySQL Server Setup (Ubuntu)

1. Run sudo mysql -u root and enter your root password
2. Run create database $DB_DATABASE;, replacing $DB_DATABASE with your database name
3. Run GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON $DB_DATABASE.* TO '$DB_USERNAME'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '$DB_PASSWORD';, replacing $DB_DATABASE with the database name picked previously, and $DB_USERNAME and $DB_PASSWORD with what you like
4. Run FLUSH PRIVILEGES; so the changes take effect
5. Edit your .env file to reflect the $DB_DATABASE, $DB_USERNAME, $DB_PASSWORD you picked.

Writing Test Cases and Factories

Create a .env.testing file for running tests in a separate test database. After creating this file, you may also need to run the following command before your settings will take effect:

php artisan config:cache --env=testing

NOTE: Use npm run test to run tests.

Writing tests are a powerful way to minimize the amount of time you spend developing solutions by having checks to see if functionality still succeeds when adding or changing parts of the project while avoiding nonessential additions.

• insert() is good for creating a customized model to exact specification.
• factory() is good for writing test cases and writing seeders.

Test Cases

Test cases should be written with readability in the forefront of your mind. There are a couple tools to help with that. Below is an illustrated example to help you on your way.

For this case we'll test something trivial like...

If slots are put on the same schedule, then they should be on the same schedule.

We can split that into a Condition and an Assertion

• The Condition: Slots are put on the same schedule
• The Assertion: The slots are on the same schedule

We'll start by creating the test using php artisan make:test SlotTest --unit. --unit is just a better way to say we're testing internal functionality.

Then in our tests\Unit\SlotTest.php, you'll see something like this...

<?php

namespace Tests\Feature;

use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\WithFaker;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;

class SlotTest extends TestCase
{
    /**
     * A basic test example.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function testExample()
    {
        $this->assertTrue(true);
    }
}

From there we can start making some changes. Like adding the RefreshDatabase trait that makes sure before the test suite is run, it clears the database first. Clearing your database before running tests is always a good practice.

Note: RefreshDatabase does not reset the database after each test, but after each suite/class.

We can also remove the "test" from testExample() and place the @test directive in the comment block above. They both tell PHPUnit that the function is a test. This may seem like a pain, but declaring smaller helper functions would throw a lot of warnings if we didn't make this disctinction. Its pretty handy. It also gives us the freedom to name the function whatever we like. So lets go ahead and rename testExample() to something more descriptive of what we're trying to achieve. We'll call it...

slots_created_on_the_same_schedule_are_on_the_same_schedule()

...it's a little long, but it tells you exactly what's being tested. You'll also notice we use snake_case instead of camelCase here. This is just because we're, writing a sentence and it's much more readable that way when function names get lengthy.

Now we should have something like this...

<?php

namespace Tests\Feature;

use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\WithFaker;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;

class SlotTest extends TestCase
{
    use RefreshDatabase;

    /**
     * @test
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function slots_created_on_the_same_schedule_are_on_the_same_schedule()
    {
        $this->assertTrue(true);
    }
}

Great! We have the skeleton, now we need to fill it with a meaningful test. Let's start by making a few slots...

$slots = factory(Slot::class, 2)->create();

Once we have that for setup, we can then test if they share the same schedule...

$first_slots_schedule = $slot[0]->schedule;
$second_slots_schedule = $slot[1]->schedule;
$this->assertEquals($first_slots_schedule->id, $second_slots_schedule->id);

...and this should pass, but it doesn't pass.

The reason why is that when you use factory(), it creates the given model but in it's own isolated strand of randomly generated models to support its existance. So how do we connect the two? We easily change it to...

$schedule = factory(Schedule::class)->create();
$slots = factory(Slot::class, 2)->create([
  'schedule_id' => $schedule->id;
]);

...this still randomly fills both Slot and Schedule instances, but this time you've overridden the slots randomly generated schedules with a common one. This also prevents the random schedules from being generated in the first place. So now we run it again and success!

Note: Using factory without FACTORY_WARNINGS set to false will spawn warnings to make you aware of randomly generated models used to fill any dependencies the factory model may have.

The final file should look something like this...

<?php

namespace Tests\Feature;

use App\Models\Schedule;
use App\Models\Slot;
use Tests\TestCase;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\WithFaker;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;

class SlotTest extends TestCase
{
    use RefreshDatabase;

    /**
     * @test
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function slots_created_on_the_same_schedule_are_on_the_same_schedule()
    {
      // Given
      $schedule = factory(Schedule::class)->create();

      // When
      $slots = factory(Slot::class, 2)->create([
        'schedule_id' => $schedule->id;
      ]);

      $first_slots_schedule = $slot[0]->schedule;
      $second_slots_schedule = $slot[1]->schedule;

      // Then
      $this->assertEquals($first_slots_schedule->id, $second_slots_schedule->id);
    }
}

Factories

Writing factories is a great way to generate a lot of test data. When writing code that requires no throwaway data and for things to be empty, it's still correct to use insert() or some variant of it.

You would write factories similarly to how laravel explains, but you would make sure to add factories that fill out their own dependencies. This allows foreign key dependencies, but isn't great at letting the user know what's happening in to the behavior of their models which can lead to a lot of assumptions. Though correct, it gives off a "magic" vibe that can leave a lot of room for assumptions.

To combat this, it's important you add warnings when they don't fill out the dependencies themselves. That way you save them a lot of headache trying to figure out why their two Slots aren't apart of the same Schedule, and probably give them enough time to have a good lunch to rethink their assumptions of your code. I know I've definitely fallen into that trap before.

<?php

$factory->define(Department::class, function (Faker $faker, array $data)
{
    if(env('APP_DEBUG') && !isset($data['event_id']))
    {
        Log::warning("Using Factory[Department] without setting event_id");
    }

    return
    [
        'name' => $faker->company,
        'description' => $faker->bs,
        'event_id' => function ()
        {
            return factory(Event::class)->create()->id;
        },
    ];
});