How to restart the browser keeping the cookies in Behat? - session-cookies

Question

I am trying to test the "remember me" feature using Behat/Mink. Here's my scenario:
Scenario: A user logs in ticking "Remember me". As he closes his browser and visits back the site, he should be automatically logged in
Given I am on "/login"
Then I should see "Site Login"
When I fill in "Username" with "test"
And I fill in "Password" with "test"
And I check "Remember me"
When I press "Login"
Then I should see "Welcome"
When I restart the browser
Then I go to "/login"
Then I should see "Welcome"
Here's the definition for restarting the browser:
/**
* #When /^I restart the browser$/
*/
public function iRestartTheBrowser()
{
$this->getSession()->restart();
}
I have also tried $this->getSession()->reset();
The problem is since the cookies are deleted upon browser restart, the "remember me" feature no longer works. Is there any way of doing a restart in mink without clearing the cookies?

Answer 1

You could get a cookie before restarting the session and set it back afterwards:
$cookie = $session->getCookie('remember_me');
$session->restart();
// I'm not sure if visiting a page before setting a cookie is actually needed
// after restarting the session.
// It's definitely needed when setting a cookie before the first request
// (to set the cookie domain).
$session->visit('/')
$session->setCookie('remember_me', $cookie);

Answer 2

I have solved this problem by adding new function to enable the test to close the browser.
/**
* #When /^I close the browser$/
*/
public function iCloseTheBrowser(){
$this->getSession()->getDriver()->stop();
}
The feature steps look like this:
...
When I close the browser
And I am on the "My" page
Then I should see "Logged: icon
...

Answer 3

One way to do it is to get all cookies before closing and reopening the browser and then setting back all the cookies which have explicit expiration date. The trick is to get cookies using selenium webdriver session and not generic mink session, as the webdriver session returns everything for a cookie (path, expiry date, etc.) rather than just the values. The code in my context looks like this:
/** #When I restart the browser */
public function iRestartTheBrowser()
{
/** #var Selenium2Driver $driver */
$driver = $this->getSession()->getDriver();
/** #var \WebDriver\Session $session */
$seleniumSession = $driver->getWebDriverSession();
$cookies = $seleniumSession->getAllCookies();
$minkSession = $this->getSession();
$minkSession->restart();
//The following is necessary - as the cookies can only be set after
//you're already on the domain - this can be any page, even an error page
$minkSession->visit($this->getMinkParameter('base_url'));
$seleniumSession = $driver->getWebDriverSession();
foreach ($cookies as $cookie) {
if (isset($cookie['expiry'])) {
$seleniumSession->setCookie($cookie);
}
}
}