testing exception messages with phpunit

Question

My phpunit test:

<?php
class TestTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
        /*
         * @expectedExceptionMessage success
         */
    public function testExceptionMessage() {
        throw new Exception('success');
    }
}

The unit test is failing. Here's the output of phpunit:

There was 1 error:

1) TestTest::testExceptionMessage
Exception: success

/path/to/TestTest.php:8

FAILURES!                          
Tests: 1, Assertions: 0, Errors: 1.

It seems to me that the test ought to be a success since the Exception message is success, which is what @expectedExceptionMessage is expecting?

Would you ever need to do this? Surely you would be testing if a piece of code throws an exception, not the test itself. — David Jones
– David Jones, Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 17:10
Add an annotation for @expectedException Exception.... @expectedExceptionMessage works in conjunction with @expectedException — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 17:12
@David Jones - it's just a demo. Would you rather I post a multi-MB code base with a whole lot of unit tests and say "why isn't it working??" or would you rather I isolate the problem as much as I possibly can and then post? — neubert
– neubert, Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 18:42
Not at all, but the code sample in the question made it look like you were throwing the exception in the test which was the source of my confusion — David Jones
– David Jones, Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 22:22

ceadreak · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-18 17:13:12Z

5

Add the @expectedException annotation and it should work

/**
 * @expectedException Exception
 * @expectedExceptionMessage success
 */
 public function testExceptionMessage() {
    throw new Exception('success');
 }

answered Dec 18, 2014 at 17:13

ceadreak

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1 Comment

neubert Over a year ago

It's not :( I'm running phpunit 4.4.0. Maybe that's not the version I need to be running?

SpringIntoJava · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-28 21:17:41Z

2

You need to alert PHPUnit BEFORE throwing it:

to expect the exception
to expect the specific message you're throwing.

 public function testExceptionMessage() {

    $this->expectException(Exception::class);  
    $this->expectExceptionMessage('success');
 
    throw new Exception('success');

}

edited Sep 28, 2020 at 21:17

answered Sep 28, 2020 at 21:08

SpringIntoJava

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