PHPUnit assert that an exception was thrown?

Question

Does anyone know whether there is an assert or something like that which can test whether an exception was thrown in the code being tested?

Answer 1

An alternative way can be the following:

$this->expectException(\InvalidArgumentException::class);
$this->expectExceptionMessage('Expected Exception Message');

Please ensure that your test class extents \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase.

Answer 2

Code below will test exception message and exception code.

Important: It will fail if expected exception not thrown too.

try{
    $test->methodWhichWillThrowException();//if this method not throw exception it must be fail too.
    $this->fail("Expected exception 1162011 not thrown");
}catch(MySpecificException $e){ //Not catching a generic Exception or the fail function is also catched
    $this->assertEquals(1162011, $e->getCode());
    $this->assertEquals("Exception Message", $e->getMessage());
}

Answer 3

If you're running on PHP 5.5+, you can use ::class resolution to obtain the name of the class with expectException/setExpectedException. This provides several benefits:

• The name will be fully-qualified with its namespace (if any).
• It resolves to a string so it will work with any version of PHPUnit.
• You get code-completion in your IDE.
• The PHP compiler will emit an error if you mistype the class name.

Example:

namespace \My\Cool\Package;

class AuthTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function testLoginFailsForWrongPassword()
    {
        $this->expectException(WrongPasswordException::class);
        Auth::login('Bob', 'wrong');
    }
}

PHP compiles

WrongPasswordException::class

into

"\My\Cool\Package\WrongPasswordException"

without PHPUnit being the wiser.

Note: PHPUnit 5.2 introduced expectException as a replacement for setExpectedException.

Answer 4

/**
 * @expectedException Exception
 * @expectedExceptionMessage Amount has to be bigger then 0!
 */
public function testDepositNegative()
{
    $this->account->deposit(-7);
}

Be very carefull about "/**", notice the double "*". Writing only "**"(asterix) will fail your code. Also make sure your using last version of phpUnit. In some earlier versions of phpunit @expectedException Exception is not supported. I had 4.0 and it didn't work for me, I had to update to 5.5 https://coderwall.com/p/mklvdw/install-phpunit-with-composer to update with composer.

Answer 5

Comprehensive Solution

PHPUnit's current "best practices" for exception testing seem.. lackluster (docs).

Since I strongly disagree with the current expectException implementation, I made a trait to use on my test cases. It's only 50 lines.

• Supports multiple exceptions per test
• Supports assertions called after the exception is thrown
• Robust and clear usage examples
• Standard assert syntax
• Supports assertions for more than just message, code, and class
• Supports inverse assertion, assertNotThrows

Library

I published the AssertThrows trait to Github and packagist so it can be installed with composer.

Simple Example

Just to illustrate the spirit behind the syntax:

<?php

// Using simple callback
$this->assertThrows(MyException::class, [$obj, 'doSomethingBad']);

// Using anonymous function
$this->assertThrows(MyException::class, function() use ($obj) {
    $obj->doSomethingBad();
});

Pretty neat?

---

Full Usage Example

Please see below for a more comprehensive usage example:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

use Jchook\AssertThrows\AssertThrows;
use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;

// These are just for illustration
use MyNamespace\MyException;
use MyNamespace\MyObject;

final class MyTest extends TestCase
{
    use AssertThrows; // <--- adds the assertThrows method

    public function testMyObject()
    {
        $obj = new MyObject();

        // Test a basic exception is thrown
        $this->assertThrows(MyException::class, function() use ($obj) {
            $obj->doSomethingBad();
        });

        // Test custom aspects of a custom extension class
        $this->assertThrows(MyException::class, 
            function() use ($obj) {
                $obj->doSomethingBad();
            },
            function($exception) {
                $this->assertEquals('Expected value', $exception->getCustomThing());
                $this->assertEquals(123, $exception->getCode());
            }
        );

        // Test that a specific exception is NOT thrown
        $this->assertNotThrows(MyException::class, function() use ($obj) {
            $obj->doSomethingGood();
        });
    }
}

?>

Answer 6

The PHPUnit expectException method is very inconvenient because it allows to test only one exception per a test method.

I've made this helper function to assert that some function throws an exception:

/**
 * Asserts that the given callback throws the given exception.
 *
 * @param string $expectClass The name of the expected exception class
 * @param callable $callback A callback which should throw the exception
 */
protected function assertException(string $expectClass, callable $callback)
{
    try {
        $callback();
    } catch (\Throwable $exception) {
        $this->assertInstanceOf($expectClass, $exception, 'An invalid exception was thrown');
        return;
    }

    $this->fail('No exception was thrown');
}

Add it to your test class and call this way:

public function testSomething() {
    $this->assertException(\PDOException::class, function() {
        new \PDO('bad:param');
    });
    $this->assertException(\PDOException::class, function() {
        new \PDO('foo:bar');
    });
}