Symfony 2 + Doctrine 2 + PHPUnit 3.5: Serialization of closure exception

Question

I tried to find something about this on Google but nothing came out. I have a TestCase class that inherits from WebTestCase, with some methods that I want to use in all my unit/functional tests:

<?php

namespace Application\FaxServerBundle\Test;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Test\WebTestCase;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Loader;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Executor\ORMExecutor;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\Purger\ORMPurger;

use Application\FaxServerBundle\DataFixtures\ORM\NetworkConfigurationData;

class TestCase extends WebTestCase
{
    protected $kernel;

    public function setUp()
    {
        parent::setUp();
    }

    public function getEm()
    {
        return $this->getService( 'doctrine.orm.entity_manager' );
    }

    public function getNetworkConfigurationRepository()
    {
        return $this->getEm()->getRepository( 'Application\FaxServerBundle\Entity\NetworkConfiguration' );
    }

    public function loadNetworkConfigurationFixtures()
    {
        $loader = new Loader();
        $loader->addFixture( new NetworkConfigurationData() );

        $this->loadFixtures( $loader );
    }

    public function loadFixtures( $loader )
    {
        $purger     = new ORMPurger();
        $executor   = new ORMExecutor( $this->getEm(), $purger );
        $executor->execute( $loader->getFixtures() );
    }

    protected function getService( $name, $kernel = null )
    {
        return $this->getBootedKernel()->getContainer()->get( $name );
    }

    protected function hasService( $name, $kernel = null )
    {

        return $this->getBootedKernel()->getContainer()->has( $name );
    }

    protected function getBootedKernel()
    {
        $this->kernel = $this->createKernel();

        if ( !$this->kernel->isBooted() ) 
        {
            $this->kernel->boot();
        }

        return $this->kernel;
    }

    public function generateUrl( $client, $route, $parameters = array() )
    {
        return $client->getContainer()->get( 'router' )->generate( $route, $parameters );
    }
}

Then, my unit test:

<?php

namespace Application\FaxServerBundle\Tests\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\AbstractQuery;

use Application\FaxServerBundle\Entity;
use Application\FaxServerBundle\Test\TestCase;

class NetworkConfigurationRepositoryTest extends TestCase
{
 public function setUp()
 {
  parent::setUp();

  $this->loadNetworkConfigurationFixtures();
 }

 public function testGetConfiguration()
 {
  $config = $this->getNetworkConfigurationRepository()->getConfigurationArray();

  $this->assertInternalType( 'array', $config );
  $this->assertEquals( 6, count( $config ) );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'id', $config );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'ip', $config );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'gateway', $config );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'subnetMask', $config );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'primaryDns', $config );
  $this->assertArrayHasKey( 'secondaryDns', $config );
 }

 public function testGetConfigurationObject()
 {
  $config = $this->getNetworkConfigurationRepository()->getConfigurationObject();

  $this->assertInternalType( 'object', $config );
 }

 public function testGetConfigurationArray()
 {
  $config = $this->getNetworkConfigurationRepository()->getConfigurationArray();

  $this->assertInternalType( 'array', $config );
 }
}

It was working before, but, suddenly, after I updated my vendors (doctrine included), it began to throw this exception:

3) Application\FaxServerBundle\Tests\Entity\NetworkConfigurationRepositoryTest::testGetConfigurationArray
RuntimeException: PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'You cannot serialize or unserialize PDO instances' in -:32
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: PDO->__sleep()
#1 -(32): serialize(Array)
#2 -(113): __phpunit_run_isolated_test()
#3 {main}

Next exception 'Exception' with message 'Serialization of 'Closure' is not allowed' in -:0
Stack trace:
#0 -(0): serialize()
#1 -(113): __phpunit_run_isolated_test()
#2 {main}
  thrown in - on line 0

I've found that the problem comes from the fixture loading. If I remove the code that loads fixtures, it works.

Does anyone know what could be wrong in my code? Is this the best way of loading fixtures?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Not technically related to your issue. However, I had a really hard time trying to solve the "Serialization of 'Closure' is not allowed" issue while using PHPUnit, and this question is the top Google result.

The problem comes from the fact that PHPUnit serializes all the $GLOBALS in the system to essential back them up while the test is running. It then restores them after the test is done.

However, if you have any closures in your GLOBAL space, it's going to cause problems. There's two ways to solve it.

You can disable the global backup procedure totally by using an annotation.

/**
 * @backupGlobals disabled
 */
class MyTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    // ...
}

Or, if you know which variable is causing the problem (look for a lambda in var_dump($GLOBALS)), you can just blacklist the problem variable(s).

class MyTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    protected $backupGlobalsBlacklist = array('application');
    // ...
}

Answer 2

You can also try.

<phpunit backupGlobals="false">
    <testsuites>
        <testsuite name="Test">
            <directory>.</directory>
        </testsuite>
    </testsuites>
</phpunit>