Laravel-excel: Can't test CSV download

[azamat-sharapov]

We have got controller method with following code:

....
return Excel::create('List', function($excel) use ($list)
{
  $excel->sheet('List', function($sheet) use ($list)
  {
    $sheet->fromModel($list);
  });
})
->download('csv');  

and simple test like this:

$this->call('GET', 'route/to/csv', [
    'param' => 'value',
]);

$this->dump();

Above test outputs [ERROR]: Headers already sent from this line.

Controller method works fine, but we are not able to test it.

We also tried to run phpunit with --stderr param. In that case, no error is thrown, but it just dumps output of CSV file and exits.
Also tried to run test with @runInSeparateProcess annotation and got errors like:

PHPUnit_Framework_Exception: PHP Notice:  Constant LARAVEL_START already defined in bootstrap/autoload.php on line 3
....
PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'ReflectionException' with message 'Class env does not exist' in vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Container/Container.php:736

Is it bug or we are testing it wrong?
Laravel version 5.1.8, Laravel Excel version 2.0.6

[screenager]

try catch it?

try {
  Excel::create..
}
catch(Exception $e) {
  if (getenv('APP_ENV') !== 'testing') {
    throw $e;
  }
}

Though of course that's just a trick to prevent the error, not a real solution..

[patrickbrouwers]

Never tried to test the excel download with phpunit. Am afraid I can't really help you with that.

Seems that Phpunit already sends headers, which makes the excel download not able to run.
Storing a file would be easier to test: you could open the file afterwards and check if the results are what you would expect. (This is how I test the package)

[azamat-sharapov]

Thanks!

[daniel-seitz]

This is a bug in PHPUnit: https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/issues/1193

[leondeng]

To those still getting this issue:
There's a walk around: call string() instead of export() then wrap up result in your response.

[christophrumpel]

Also used string and then checked the content of the string in my tests. Not beautiful but worked.

[sebdesign]

I'm having the same issue, this is how I implemented @leondeng's fix for CSV files.

$excel = Excel::create(...);

$identifier = app('excel.identifier');
$format = $identifier->getFormatByExtension('csv');
$contentType = $identifier->getContentTypeByFormat($format);

return response($excel->string('csv'), 200, [
    'Content-Type'        => $contentType,
    'Content-Disposition' => 'attachment; filename="' . $excel->getFileName() . '.csv"',
    'Expires'             => 'Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT', // Date in the past
    'Last-Modified'       => Carbon::now()->format('D, d M Y H:i:s'),
    'Cache-Control'       => 'cache, must-revalidate',
    'Pragma'              => 'public',
]);