Balance Your Checkbook

The Website and API

Development Setup

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.x
• MySQL
• Composer
• Node.js & NPM

Installation

1. Clone the repository

2. Install PHP dependencies:

   composer install

3. Install NPM dependencies:

   npm install

4. Copy environment file:

   cp .env.example .env

5. Configure your .env file with database credentials and other settings

6. Generate application key:

   php artisan key:generate

7. Run database migrations:

   php artisan migrate

8. Install Laravel Passport:

   php artisan passport:install

9. Create Passport clients (if not already created):

   # Create personal access client (for API tokens)
   php artisan passport:client --personal
   
   # Create password grant client (for web authentication)
   php artisan passport:client --password

Testing

Test Database Setup

For running tests, you need a separate test database to avoid affecting your development data.

1. Create a test database:

   CREATE DATABASE laravel_balance_test;
   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON laravel_balance_test.* TO 'your_db_user'@'localhost';

2. Create .env.testing file:

   cp .env .env.testing

3. Update .env.testing with test database configuration:

   APP_ENV=testing
   DB_CONNECTION=mysql
   DB_DATABASE=laravel_balance_test
   CACHE_DRIVER=array
   SESSION_DRIVER=array
   QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync

4. Run migrations on test database:

   php artisan migrate:fresh --env=testing

Running Tests

Run all tests:

php artisan test

Run tests and stop on first failure:

php artisan test --stop-on-failure

Run specific test file:

php artisan test tests/Feature/Admin/UsersControllerTest.php

Run specific test method:

php artisan test --filter="test_method_name"

Test Database Management

The test database uses DatabaseTransactions trait, which means:

• Each test runs in a transaction that gets rolled back after the test
• Data from one test doesn't affect another test
• Your development database remains untouched

To refresh the test database schema:

php artisan migrate:fresh --env=testing

Development

Starting the Development Server

php artisan serve

Building Assets

Development build:

npm run dev

Production build:

npm run build

Watch for changes:

npm run watch