Serialization of 'Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\File\UploadedFile' is not allowed

[PlamenVasilev]

I'm trying to write white unit test to test my API with file uploads.

I'm following the docs about this using basic client request, not crawler.

The unit test is:

class RecordsControllerTest extends WebTestCase {

private $client;

public function __construct() {
    parent::__construct();
    $this->client = self::createClient();
    $this->client->insulate();
}

public function testApiPostUpload($params){
    $fileToUpload = realpath(__DIR__.'/../../resources/mpthreetest.mp3');
    $file = new UploadedFile(
        $fileToUpload,
        'mpthreetest.mp3',
        MimeTypeGuesser::getInstance()->guess($fileToUpload),
        filesize($fileToUpload)
    );
    $this->client->request('POST', '/records/'.$params['createdRecordId'].'/upload', array(), array('file' => $file) );

    $this->assertEquals(200, $this->client->getResponse()->getStatusCode());
}
}

When I execute the test I receive an error:

Exception: Serialization of 'Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\File\UploadedFile' is not allowed

/path/to/project/vendor/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/Client.php:165
/path/to/project/vendor/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Component/BrowserKit/Client.php:348
/path/to/project/vendor/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/Client.php:143
/path/to/project/vendor/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Component/BrowserKit/Client.php:313
/path/to/project/src/Bundle/Tests/Functional/Controller/RecordsControllerTest.php:182

Posting files is not working as it is described in the docs.

Any ideas?

[PlamenVasilev]

I have found the solution :

adding

$this->client->insulate(false);

fixed the problem, but why it is not working in insulated mode ?
Is this a bug?

[jjsaunier]

I think it's because the UploadFile class contains a stream for the file, and you can't serialize an object containing a stream. So it's not a bug but a limitation due to php.

[javiereguiluz]

Although we can't fix this because of the PHP limitation explained by @Prophet777, we've improved the docs to explain this: symfony/symfony-docs#8180. Closing it as fixed then. Thanks!

[Mopster]

For anyone else encountering this, I was able to resolve it by setting the changeHistory parameter to false (7th and last parameter in the request method signature):

$crawler = $client->request($form->getMethod(), $form->getUri(), $values, $files, [], null, false);

This will prevent the serialize on following lines :

if ($this->followRedirects && $this->redirect) {
            $this->redirects[serialize($this->history->current())] = true;

            return $this->crawler = $this->followRedirect();
}