laravelphpunittest-bench

ErrorException: Undefined variable $original when running a test

Problem

While running tests using PHPUnit and Orchestra Testbench, I encountered the following error:

ErrorException: Undefined variable $original at 
/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Database/Query/Builder.php:3362

Context

I was developing a Laravel package, and that error appeared when tried to run a test that started by running migrations:

$this->artisan('migrate')->run();
Solution

  • Cause

    The root of the problem is a bug that only exists in the development branch of Laravel 13.x (dev-master or 13.x-dev), which is not yet released at the time of writing.

    The reason why Laravel 13 was installed is because:

    Testbench 11.x-dev requires laravel/framework:^13.0

    My composer.json had "minimum-stability": "dev" without "prefer-stable": true

    So when I ran composer require --dev orchestra/testbench, Composer pulled in the latest dev versions of both Testbench and Laravel

    Solution

    To avoid this kind of issue in your package development environment:

    1. Update your composer.json to include:
    "prefer-stable": true,
"minimum-stability": "dev"

    This ensures that only stable versions of packages are selected unless absolutely necessary.

    1. Require Testbench again:
    composer remove orchestra/testbench
composer require --dev orchestra/testbench

    This time, Composer will install the latest stable version of Testbench

    1. Run your tests again — the error should disappear.