yii2/docs/guide/console-fixture.md

Managing Fixtures
=================

// todo: this tutorial may be merged into test-fixture.md

Fixtures are important part of testing. Their main purpose is to populate you with data that needed by testing
different cases. With this data using your tests becoming more efficient and useful.

Yii supports fixtures via the `yii fixture` command line tool. This tool supports:

* Loading fixtures to different storage such as: RDBMS, NoSQL, etc;
* Unloading fixtures in different ways (usually it is clearing storage);
* Auto-generating fixtures and populating it with random data.

Fixtures format
---------------

Fixtures are objects with different methods and configurations, refer to official [documentation](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/blob/master/docs/guide/test-fixture.md) on them.
Lets assume we have fixtures data to load:

```
#users.php file under fixtures data path, by default @tests\unit\fixtures\data

return [
    [
        'name' => 'Chase',
        'login' => 'lmayert',
        'email' => 'strosin.vernice@jerde.com',
        'auth_key' => 'K3nF70it7tzNsHddEiq0BZ0i-OU8S3xV',
        'password' => '$2y$13$WSyE5hHsG1rWN2jV8LRHzubilrCLI5Ev/iK0r3jRuwQEs2ldRu.a2',
    ],
    [
        'name' => 'Celestine',
        'login' => 'napoleon69',
        'email' => 'aileen.barton@heaneyschumm.com',
        'auth_key' => 'dZlXsVnIDgIzFgX4EduAqkEPuphhOh9q',
        'password' => '$2y$13$kkgpvJ8lnjKo8RuoR30ay.RjDf15bMcHIF7Vz1zz/6viYG5xJExU6',
    ],
];
```
If we are using fixture that loads data into database then these rows will be applied to `users` table. If we are using nosql fixtures, for example `mongodb`
fixture, then this data will be applied to `users` mongodb collection. In order to learn about implementing various loading strategies and more, refer to official [documentation](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/blob/master/docs/guide/test-fixture.md).
Above fixture example was auto-generated by `yii2-faker` extension, read more about it in these [section](#auto-generating-fixtures).
Fixture classes name should not be plural.

Loading fixtures
----------------

Fixture classes should be suffixed by `Fixture` class. By default fixtures will be searched under `tests\unit\fixtures` namespace, you can
change this behavior with config or command options.

To load fixture, run the following command:

```
yii fixture/load <fixture_name>
```

The required `fixture_name` parameter specifies a fixture name which data will be loaded. You can load several fixtures at once.
Below are correct formats of this command:

```
// load `users` fixture
yii fixture/load User

// same as above, because default action of "fixture" command is "load"
yii fixture User

// load several fixtures. Note that there should not be any whitespace between ",", it should be one string.
yii fixture User,UserProfile

// load all fixtures
yii fixture/load all

// same as above
yii fixture all

// load fixtures, but for other database connection.
yii fixture User --db='customDbConnectionId'

// load fixtures, but search them in different namespace. By default namespace is: tests\unit\fixtures.
yii fixture User --namespace='alias\my\custom\namespace'

// load global fixture `some\name\space\CustomFixture` before other fixtures will be loaded.
// By default this option is set to `InitDbFixture` to disable/enable integrity checks. You can specify several
// global fixtures separated by comma.
yii fixture User --globalFixtures='some\name\space\Custom'
```

Unloading fixtures
------------------

To unload fixture, run the following command:

```
// unload Users fixture, by default it will clear fixture storage (for example "users" table, or "users" collection if this is mongodb fixture).
yii fixture/unload User

// Unload several fixtures. Note that there should not be any whitespace between ",", it should be one string.
yii fixture/unload User,UserProfile

// unload all fixtures
yii fixture/unload all
```

Same command options like: `db`, `namespace`, `globalFixtures` also can be applied to this command.

Configure Command Globally
--------------------------
While command line options allow us to configure the migration command
on-the-fly, sometimes we may want to configure the command once for all. For example you can configure
different migration path as follows:

```
'controllerMap' => [
    'fixture' => [
        'class' => 'yii\console\controllers\FixtureController',
        'db' => 'customDbConnectionId',
        'namespace' => 'myalias\some\custom\namespace',
        'globalFixtures' => [
            'some\name\space\Foo',
            'other\name\space\Bar'
        ],
    ],
]
```

Auto-generating fixtures
------------------------

Yii also can auto-generate fixtures for you based on some template. You can generate your fixtures with different data on different languages and formats.
These feature is done by [Faker](https://github.com/fzaninotto/Faker) library and `yii2-faker` extension.
See extension [guide](https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/tree/master/extensions/faker) for more docs.