Essential Books

Testing privateprotected methods

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Sometimes it’s useful to test private & protected methods as well as public ones. 

class Car
{
    /**
     * @param mixed $argument
     *
     * @return mixed
     */
    protected function drive($argument)
    {
        return $argument;
    }

    /**
     * @return bool
     */
    private static function stop()
    {
        return true;
    }
}

Easiest way to test drive method is using reflection 

class DriveTest
{
    /**
     * @test
     */
    public function testDrive()
    {
        // prepare
        $argument = 1;
        $expected = $argument;
        $car = new \Car();

        $reflection = new ReflectionClass(\Car::class);
        $method = $reflection->getMethod('drive');
        $method->setAccessible(true);

        // invoke logic
        $result = $method->invokeArgs($car, [$argument]);

        // test
        $this->assertEquals($expected, $result);
    }
}

If the method is static you pass null in the place of the class instance 

class StopTest
{
    /**
     * @test
     */
    public function testStop()
    {
        // prepare
        $expected = true;

        $reflection = new ReflectionClass(\Car::class);
        $method = $reflection->getMethod('stop');
        $method->setAccessible(true);

        // invoke logic
        $result = $method->invoke(null);

        // test
        $this->assertEquals($expected, $result);
    }
}
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Reflection:
* Reflection
* Accessing private and protected member variables
* Feature detection of classes or objects
* Testing privateprotected methods
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