Testing try catch blocks

[gritty canopy]

Hello everyone.

I have been writing some tests for my application but can't seem to figure out a way of testing try catch blocks, even after doing some research.

In my LoginUserController.php, suppose my code throws an error, which I'm catching using try/catch block, how do I test for this?

In my AuthenticationTest.php, how do I write the tests for test_exceptions_are_caught_during_login method?

[red shell]

You write a test case that should succeed, then you write another test case with bad data that should trigger an exception and add an expectation for that exception.

Or, you use Laravel properly and just let the exception handler handle exceptions (like its name suggests) instead of just gobbling up any exception in every controller method you write.

You also don’t want to return back on successful login because that will probably just sent you in an infinite redirect loop.

I mean, the Laravel docs does give you an example if you’re really wanting to do manually authentication for whatever reason: https://laravel.com/docs/9.x/authentication#authenticating-users

Why you need to do manually authentication when Laravel offers at least half a dozen first-party packages for various authentication strategies, I don’t know though.

If you’re going to post a message, it’s polite to stay online for more than 5 seconds for any replies, @gritty canopy

[gritty canopy]

@red shell Apologies for going offline immediately after posting, had some errands to run.

I do not have much experience with testing, that's why I raised this issue. I appreciate your feedback and I will look into some suggestions you offered.

[gritty canopy]

I'm using Inertia, so the redirect works just fine

[gritty canopy]

The manual authentication was purely for learning purposes as I'd like to understand what happens during authentication in detail