Passing datetime string to laravel model factory chooses random date

Question

I have a table of bugs, a table of actions and a history table.

Every time an action is performed on the bug I want to record it in my history table.

I'm trying to seed some dummy data to the database. This what I'm doing:

public function run()
{
    $bugs = App\Bug::all();

    foreach ($bugs as $bug) {

        //Add a history entry for the bug
        factory(App\History::class)->create([
            'action_id' => App\Action::where('name', '=', 'create')->first()->id,
            'user_id' => $bug->project->users->random()->id,
            'bug_id' => $bug->id,
            'created_at' => $bug->created_at,
            'updated_at' => $bug->updated_at
        ]);

        //Here I perform some random actions and save the history of the action
        for ($i = 0; $i < 9; $i ++) {

            $createdDate = $bug->created_at->addDays(mt_rand(1,6))->addHours(mt_rand(1,23))->toDateTimeString();

            //This is the only action I'm having trouble with
            factory(App\History::class, 1)->create([
                        'created_at' => $createdDate,
                        'action_id' => App\Action::where('name', '=', 'comment')->first()->id,
                    ])->each(function ($history) {
                        $history->comment()
                            ->save(factory(App\Comment::class)->make());
                    });



        }
    }
}

In my bug model factory I have

$factory->define(App\Bug::class, function (Faker\Generator $faker) {

return [
    'name' => $faker->word,
    'description' => $faker->sentence,
    'project_id' => $faker->randomNumber(),
    'created_at' => $faker->dateTimeBetween('-1 years'),
];
});

I'm expecting the above to store a history entry with the created_at field that is 1-5 days and 1-23 hours later than the bug's created_at field.

What I'm seeing is a random within the past year. As if I am doing this

$faker->dateTimeBetween('-1 years')

So sometimes I'm getting entries in my history table from before the creation entry.

I have hard coded in dates and it's storing it correctly.

Answer 1

It relates to https://stackoverflow.com/a/22968593/2344245. Since PHP 5+

"objects are passed by references by default"

By cloning them you get a new different instance. Therefore, this should work for you:

$createdDate = $bug->created_at->copy()->addDays(mt_rand(1,6))->addHours(mt_rand(1,23))->toDateTimeString();