Faker

Faker is a PHP library that generates fake data for you. Whether you need to bootstrap your database, create good-looking XML documents, fill-in your persistence to stress test it, or anonymize data taken from a production service, Faker is for you.

It's heavily inspired by Perl's Data::Faker, and by Ruby's Faker.

Getting Started

Installation

Faker requires PHP >= 7.4.

composer require fakerphp/faker

Documentation

Full documentation can be found over on fakerphp.github.io.

Basic Usage

Use Faker\Factory::create() to create and initialize a Faker generator, which can generate data by accessing methods named after the type of data you want.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

// use the factory to create a Faker\Generator instance
$faker = Faker\Factory::create();
// generate data by calling methods
echo $faker->name();
// 'Vince Sporer'
echo $faker->email();
// 'walter.sophia@hotmail.com'
echo $faker->text();
// 'Numquam ut mollitia at consequuntur inventore dolorem.'

Each call to $faker->name() yields a different (random) result. This is because Faker uses __call() magic, and forwards Faker\Generator->$method() calls to Faker\Generator->format($method, $attributes).

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

for ($i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {
    echo $faker->name() . "\n";
}

// 'Cyrus Boyle'
// 'Alena Cummerata'
// 'Orlo Bergstrom'

Automated refactoring

If you already used this library with its properties, they are now deprecated and needs to be replaced by their equivalent methods.

You can use the provided Rector config file to automate the work.

Run

composer require --dev rector/rector

to install rector/rector.

Run

vendor/bin/rector process src/ --config vendor/fakerphp/faker/rector-migrate.php

to run rector/rector.

Note: do not forget to replace src/ with the path to your source directory.

Alternatively, import the configuration in your rector.php file:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

use Rector\Config;

return static function (Config\RectorConfig $rectorConfig): void {
    $rectorConfig->import('vendor/fakerphp/faker/rector-migrate.php');
};

License

Faker is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

PHP Version Support Policy

The maintainers of this package add support for a PHP version following its initial release and drop support for a PHP version one year after it has reached its end of security support.

Backward compatibility promise

Faker is using Semver. This means that versions are tagged with MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. Only a new major version will be allowed to break backward compatibility (BC).

Classes marked as @experimental or @internal are not included in our backward compatibility promise. You are also not guaranteed that the value returned from a method is always the same. You are guaranteed that the data type will not change.

PHP 8 introduced named arguments, which increased the cost and reduces flexibility for package maintainers. The names of the arguments for methods in Faker is not included in our BC promise.