Seeding #

You can pre-fill your database with sample data via Seeders. Seeders are simply invokable functions or classes. Within the seeder you are free to interact with the database however you need. Although, most commonly, you will use factories to generate sample data.

class DatabaseSeeder {
    public function __invoke() {
        Entry::factory()->section('news')->count(10)->create();
    }
}

Console command #

Seeders can be run manually via the php craft pest/seed console command.

By default, your application seeders live in the modules\pest\seeders namespace with the default seeder being the DatabaseSeeder. Out of the box, running php craft pest/seed will invoke the modules\pest\seeders\DatabaseSeeder class.

You can override the default namespace either by passing a --namespace option to the console command or by setting a PEST_SEEDER_NAMESPACE environment variable. The following two commands are functionally identical.

$ php craft pest/seed --namespace="my\\custom\\namespace"
$ PEST_SEEDER_NAMESPACE="my\\custom\\namespace" php craft pest/seed

The default seeder can be overridden by passing the class name as an argument to the seed command.

$ php craft pest/seed MyAlternateSeeder

Note, that if you pass a seeder that begins with a forward slash it will be treated as a fully qualified class name and the default namespace will be ignored.

$ php craft pest/seed \\my\\custom\\Seeder

Test setup #

Tests can invoke one or more seeders by passing the fully qualified class name to the ->seed() method. For example,

it('has entries', function () {
    // ...
})->seed(\modules\pest\seeders\DatabaseSeeder::class);

The seed method also accepts any PHP callable, so you can pass any other invokable class or a callable. Each of the following should produce the same result.

function functionSeeder() {
    return Entry::factory()->section('news')->count(10)->create();
}

$anonymousFunctionSeeder = function () {
    return Entry::factory()->section('news')->count(10)->create();
};

$classSeeder = new class {
    public function __invoke() {
        return Entry::factory()->section('news')->count(10)->create();
    }
};

it('has entries', function () {
    // ...
})->seed(functionSeeder(...), $anonymousFunctionSeeder, $classSeeder);

Within a test any data that the seeder returns will be exposed to the test via the $this->seedData property. It is not required that a seeder return data, however, in which case the $this->seedData property will be null.

it('has entries', function () {
    $this->assertNotEmpty($this->seedData);
})->seed(\modules\pest\seeders\DatabaseSeeder::class);