Accurate usage of mockery PHPUnit?

Question

I was just wondering, Is this an accurate representation of how to use Mockery with PHPUnit or can you think of a better example? In essence I am mocking my PodcastUploadService as I am not concerned that a podcast is uploaded but rather that the method is called and returns true for my inputs.

    <?php
/** @test */
function can_store_podcast_thumbnail()
{
 $podcast = factory(Podcast::class)->make([
     'feed_thumbnail_location' => 
     'https://media.simplecast.com/image/artwork.jpg',
 ]);

 $mockedService = Mockery::mock(\App\PodcastUploadService::class);
 $mockedService->shouldReceive('storePodcastThumbnail')
    ->with($podcast)
    ->once()
    ->andReturn(true);
 $mockedService->storePodcastThumbnail($podcast);
}

Just wondering,

Thanks!

Answer 1

I would argue that if you aren't at all concerned whether a podcast is uploaded, you shouldn't write a test for it.

But then again, if you really aren't concerned with it, you shouldn't write code for it either.

In the current form, your test doesn't add a lot of value. All it's testing, really, is whether the mocking framework works. That's already tested elsewhere, though, so you're doing double work.

A mock would make sense when you'd be testing a service that depends on the PodcastUploadService: you only want to test that service and not need to deal with the PodcastUploadService itself.

For more information, this article about Mocks may be of help.