Skip to content
  • About
    • What is Symfony?
    • Community
    • News
    • Contributing
    • Support
  • Documentation
    • Symfony Docs
    • Symfony Book
    • Screencasts
    • Symfony Bundles
    • Symfony Cloud
    • Training
  • Services
    • Platform.sh for Symfony Best platform to deploy Symfony apps
    • SymfonyInsight Automatic quality checks for your apps
    • Symfony Certification Prove your knowledge and boost your career
    • SensioLabs Professional services to help you with Symfony
    • Blackfire Profile and monitor performance of your apps
  • Other
  • Blog
  • Download
sponsored by SensioLabs
  1. Home
  2. Documentation
  3. Components
  4. Http Foundation
  5. Testing with Sessions
  • Documentation
  • Book
  • Reference
  • Bundles
  • Cloud

Table of Contents

  • Unit Testing
  • Functional Testing

Testing with Sessions

Edit this page

Warning: You are browsing the documentation for Symfony 5.1, which is no longer maintained.

Consider upgrading your projects to Symfony 6.3.

Testing with Sessions

Symfony is designed from the ground up with code-testability in mind. In order to test your code which utilizes sessions, we provide two separate mock storage mechanisms for both unit testing and functional testing.

Testing code using real sessions is tricky because PHP's workflow state is global and it is not possible to have multiple concurrent sessions in the same PHP process.

The mock storage engines simulate the PHP session workflow without actually starting one allowing you to test your code without complications. You may also run multiple instances in the same PHP process.

The mock storage drivers do not read or write the system globals session_id() or session_name(). Methods are provided to simulate this if required:

  • getId(): Gets the session ID.
  • setId(): Sets the session ID.
  • getName(): Gets the session name.
  • setName(): Sets the session name.

Unit Testing

For unit testing where it is not necessary to persist the session, you should swap out the default storage engine with MockArraySessionStorage:

1
2
3
4
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\MockArraySessionStorage;

$session = new Session(new MockArraySessionStorage());

Functional Testing

For functional testing where you may need to persist session data across separate PHP processes, change the storage engine to MockFileSessionStorage:

1
2
3
4
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Storage\MockFileSessionStorage;

$session = new Session(new MockFileSessionStorage());
This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.
TOC
    Version
    We stand with Ukraine.
    Version:
    Measure & Improve Symfony Code Performance

    Measure & Improve Symfony Code Performance

    Code consumes server resources. Blackfire tells you how

    Code consumes server resources. Blackfire tells you how

    Symfony footer

    ↓ Our footer now uses the colors of the Ukrainian flag because Symfony stands with the people of Ukraine.

    Avatar of Jay-Way, a Symfony contributor

    Thanks Jay-Way for being a Symfony contributor

    1 commit • 2 lines changed

    View all contributors that help us make Symfony

    Become a Symfony contributor

    Be an active part of the community and contribute ideas, code and bug fixes. Both experts and newcomers are welcome.

    Learn how to contribute

    Symfony™ is a trademark of Symfony SAS. All rights reserved.

    • What is Symfony?

      • Symfony at a Glance
      • Symfony Components
      • Case Studies
      • Symfony Releases
      • Security Policy
      • Logo & Screenshots
      • Trademark & Licenses
      • symfony1 Legacy
    • Learn Symfony

      • Symfony Docs
      • Symfony Book
      • Reference
      • Bundles
      • Best Practices
      • Training
      • eLearning Platform
      • Certification
    • Screencasts

      • Learn Symfony
      • Learn PHP
      • Learn JavaScript
      • Learn Drupal
      • Learn RESTful APIs
    • Community

      • SymfonyConnect
      • Support
      • How to be Involved
      • Code of Conduct
      • Events & Meetups
      • Projects using Symfony
      • Downloads Stats
      • Contributors
      • Backers
    • Blog

      • Events & Meetups
      • A week of symfony
      • Case studies
      • Cloud
      • Community
      • Conferences
      • Diversity
      • Documentation
      • Living on the edge
      • Releases
      • Security Advisories
      • SymfonyInsight
      • Twig
      • SensioLabs
    • Services

      • SensioLabs services
      • Train developers
      • Manage your project quality
      • Improve your project performance
      • Host Symfony projects

      Deployed on

    Follow Symfony

    Search by Meilisearch