I'm not sure what I've done wrong in my CakePHP unit test configuration. Every time I run a test case, the model tables associated with my fixtures are missing form my test database.

After running an individual test case I have to re-import my database tables using phpMyAdmin.

Here are the relevant files:

This is the class I'm trying to test comment.php. This table is dropped after the test.

  App::import('Sanitize');

  class Comment extends AppModel{

public $name = 'Comment';

public $actsAs = array('Tree');

     public $belongsTo = array('User' => array('fields'=>array('id', 'username')));

public $validate = array( 'text' => array( 'rule' =>array('between', 1, 4000), 'required' =>'true', 'allowEmpty'=>'false', 'message' => "You can't leave your comment text empty!") );

database.php

class DATABASE_CONFIG {

var $default = array( 'driver' => 'mysql', 'persistent' => false, 'host' => 'project.db', 'login' => 'projectman', 'password' => 'projectpassword', 'database' => 'projectdb', 'prefix' => '' );

var $test = array( 'driver' => 'mysql', 'persistent' => false, 'host' => 'project.db', 'login' => 'projectman', 'password' => 'projectpassword', 'database' => 'testprojectdb', 'prefix' => '' ); }

My comment.test.php file. This is the table that keeps getting dropped.

<?php
App::import('Model', 'Comment');

class CommentTestCase extends CakeTestCase
{

public $fixtures = array('app.comment', 'app.user');

function start(){ $this->Comment =& ClassRegistry::init('Comment'); $this->Comment->useDbConfig = 'test_suite'; }

This is my comment_fixture.php class:

  <?php
   class CommentFixture extends CakeTestFixture
   {
var $name = "Comment";

var $import = 'Comment';
   }

And just in case, here is a typical test method in the CommentTestCase class

   function testMsgNotificationUserComment(){

$user_id = '1'; $submission_id = '1'; $parent_id = $this->Comment->commentOnModel('Submission', $submission_id, '0', $user_id, "Says: A");

$other_user_id = '2'; $msg_id = $this->Comment->commentOnModel('Submission', $submission_id, $parent_id, $other_user_id, "Says: B");

$expected = array(array('Comment'=>array('id'=>$msg_id, 'text'=>"Says: B", 'submission_id'=>$submission_id, 'topic_id'=>'0', 'ack'=>'0')));

$result = $this->Comment->getMessages($user_id);

$this->assertEqual($result, $expected); }

I've been dealing with this for a day now and I'm starting to be put off by CakePHP's unit testing. In addition to this issue -- Servral times now I've had data inserted into by 'default' database configuration after running tests! What's going on with my configuration?!