6. Test - Unit Tests

A good automated testing strategy is crucial to keeping our applications maintainable. The framework provides a comprehensive test suite to get you on the right track setting up tests. Tests files are stored under the test/ directory.

The framework refers to two different groups of tests. Unit Tests for our models, and Functional Tests for our controller and views. As you create stubs for your models and controllers using script/generate, the framework will automatically create corresponding test stubs.

6.2.1 Installing PHPUnit

Our testing framework is built on PHPUnit and this must be installed on your system. To check if PHPUnit is installed properly, run the phpunit --version command:

$> phpunit --version

PHPUnit 3.2.0beta9 by Sebastian Bergmann.

If the output does not look similar to the above and indicate version 3.2 or greater, please see the installation instructions in the PHPUnit Pocket Guide.

6.2.2 Running a Single Test

You can run any single test file in the test/unit/ or test/functional/ directories:

$> cd /your-application/test/unit
$> phpunit DocumentTest

The above will run only the tests that have been written for the Document model. It may take a few seconds and should display output that is similar to:

PHPUnit 3.2.0beta9 by Sebastian Bergmann.
..........

Time: 16.990113019943
OK (10 Tests)

$>

Each period represents a passed test. If there are any Failures or errors, they will be represented by F or E respectively with a message describing what went wrong.

PHPUnit 3.2.0beta9 by Sebastian Bergmann.
F.........

Time: 11.186962842941
There was 1 failure:
1) testFindByPk(DocumentTest)
expected <1234> but was: <0>
../your-application/test/unit/DocumentTest.php:47
../vender/Mad/Test/Unit.php:125

FAILURES!!!
Tests run: 10, Failures: 1, Errors: 0, Incomplete Tests: 0.

$>

We are given a wealth of information to fix what went wrong including the name of the test that failed, the value we expected in our test assertion, and the backtrace of the error.

6.2.3 Running All Tests

All of the tests for your application are located in the test/ directory under you application's root directory. To run all of the tests, change to the test/ directory and run AllTests:

$> cd /your-application/test
$> phpunit AllTests

6.2.4 Running a Test Group

Tests are organized into two groups: unit tests and functional tests. When you run AllTests as shown above, it will run all tests in both groups.

It is often convenient to run all of the tests of a particular group, e.g. just the unit tests or just the functional tests. You can do this with the --group switch for PHPUnit:

$> cd /your-application/test
$> phpunit --group unit AllTests

6.3.2 Fixtures

A fixture is the system's state before the test is performed. We this this up by loading sample data into the database for the test to perform. This sample data is loaded before the test and then cleared out at the end of the test. This ensures that no test will have an effect on the operation of a different test.

6.4.1 Introducing YAML

YAML (Rhymes with "camel") is our preferred method for loading test data. The YAML fixture files can be found in /test/fixtures and should end with a .yml extension.

YAML is great because it is extremely human readable. Yaml is formatted using a few simple guidelines. Note that spacing is important (2 space indents, no tabs).

A Comment

# A YAML comment

A Mapping is a key associated with a value:

String:  Any string of characters
Int:     12
Boolean: true
Null:    NULL
Float:   3.43

A Sequence is a list of items

- item 1
- item 2
- item 3

An Inline Sequence is a shortcut for writing a sequence when your values consist of only 1 word.

[item1, item2, item3]

A Mapping of a Sequence

teardown:
  - do this first
  - do this second
  - do this third

A Mapping of an Inline Sequence

requires: [folders, documents]

A Mapping of a Mapping

public:
  id:          1
  parent_id:   0
  name:        Documents
  path:       ./Documents

6.4.2 Fixture Format

Our fixtures are by convention named after the table in which they are inserted. So in the simplest form, inserting two records into the folders table would look like the following and would be in /test/fixtures/folders.yml.

public:
  id:        1
  parent_id: 0
  name:      Documents
  path:      ./Documents

private:
  id:         2
  parent_id:  1
  name:       Private
  path:       ./Documents/Private

This fixture would load two records into the database, but also make the yml records accessible within the test itself by their respective names (public/private). It is important to name each record with a unique name.