How to set cookie before test in Laravel? - testing

Question

I need to test a specific behaviour based on the presence of a cookie, how do I set a cookie before sending the request (or visiting the page) ? For the moment the following fails, it behaves likes nothing was set.
$this->actingAs($user)
->withSession(['user' => $user, 'profile' => $profile]) ;
#setcookie( 'locale_lc', "fr", time() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 900, '/', "domain.com", true, true) ;
$this->visit('/profile') ;
Or
$cookie = ['locale_lc' => Crypt::encrypt('fr')] ;
$this->actingAs($user)
->withSession(['user' => $user, 'profile' => $profile])
->makeRequest('GET', '/profile', [], $cookie) ;

Answer 1

The problem was in the setting and reading of cookies. Neither #setcookie nor $_COOKIE will work from a testing context. The method makeRequest with a cookie array is the right one.
However !
The reading script (controller, middleware) must be using Laravel's $request->cookie() method and not directly try to access it with $_COOKIE. In my case the cookie needs to be read by another app on our domain so I also had to disable the encryption for that specific cookie, which can be done in EncryptCookies.php
EncryptCookies
<?php
protected $except = [
'locale_lc'
];
Test
<?php
$cookie = ['locale_lc' => 'fr'] ;
$this->actingAs($user)
->withSession(['user' => $user, 'profile' => $profile])
->makeRequest('GET', '/profile', [], $cookie) ;
Middleware
<?php
public function handle($request, Closure $next){
if($request->cookie('locale_lc')){...}
}