Getting Started

This guide walks you through installing the plugin, baking your first factory, and persisting test data.

What is this?

CakePHP Fixture Factories replaces the static $fixtures array workflow with a programmatic, type-safe factory pattern — like FactoryBot (Ruby) or factory_boy (Python), tailored to CakePHP and the wider PHP ecosystem.

You write a factory class per table; tests then build exactly the data they need:

$articles = ArticleFactory::make(5)
    ->with('Authors[3].Address.City.Country')
    ->persistEntities();

Five articles, each with three authors, each with a full address chain — persisted, in one expression.

Installation

composer require --dev dereuromark/cakephp-fixture-factories

You'll also need a data generator. Pick one (or install both):

# Faker — mature, full locale support
composer require --dev fakerphp/faker

# DummyGenerator — lean, PHP 8.3+, native enums
composer require --dev johnykvsky/dummygenerator

Load the plugin

In src/Application.php:

protected function bootstrapCli(): void
{
    if (Configure::read('debug')) {
        $this->addPlugin('CakephpFixtureFactories');
    }
}

Configure the fixture strategy (recommended)

The plugin ships with FactoryTransactionStrategy — wraps each test in a transaction, rolls everything back afterwards, resets unique generator state. No more $fixtures arrays.

In config/app.php:

'TestSuite' => [
    'fixtureStrategy' => \CakephpFixtureFactories\TestSuite\FactoryTransactionStrategy::class,
],

For older CakePHP versions (5.0 – 5.1) use the trait — see Setup.

Bake your first factory

bin/cake bake fixture_factory Articles -m

The -m flag adds helper methods for each association. The generated tests/Factory/ArticleFactory.php:

namespace App\Test\Factory;

use CakephpFixtureFactories\Factory\BaseFactory;
use CakephpFixtureFactories\Generator\GeneratorInterface;

class ArticleFactory extends BaseFactory
{
    protected function getRootTableRegistryName(): string
    {
        return 'Articles';
    }

    protected function setDefaultTemplate(): void
    {
        $this->setDefaultData(function (GeneratorInterface $generator) {
            return [
                'title' => $generator->text(30),
                'body'  => $generator->text(1000),
            ];
        });
    }
}

Use it

use App\Test\Factory\ArticleFactory;

// Build (in memory only)
$article = ArticleFactory::make()->getEntity();

// Or persist to DB
$article = ArticleFactory::make()->persistEntity();

// With overrides
$article = ArticleFactory::make(['title' => 'Hello'])->persistEntity();

// With associations
$article = ArticleFactory::make()
    ->with('Authors', AuthorFactory::make(3))
    ->persistEntity();

// Multiple entities
$articles = ArticleFactory::make(5)->persistEntities();

That's it — your test now has data without touching a fixture file.

Where to next?

• Fixture Factories — full factory API
• Usage Examples — common patterns
• Associations — building object graphs
• Scenarios — reusable test setups
• Generators — switching between Faker and DummyGenerator
• Bake command and Persist command — CLI reference