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Unit tester Simple Test PHP Unit Test Framework Mock objects
Group tests

Group tests

Table of Contents

Grouping tests into suites

To run test cases as part of a group, the test cases should really be placed in files without the runner code...

  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('../classes/io.php');
  3.  
  4.     class FileTester extends UnitTestCase {
  5.         ...
  6.     }
  7.  
  8.     class SocketTester extends UnitTestCase {
  9.         ...
  10.     }
  11. ?>
As many cases as needed can appear in a single file. They should include any code they need, such as the library being tested, but none of the simple test libraries.

If you have extended any test cases, you can include them as well. In PHP 4...

  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('../classes/io.php');
  3.  
  4.     class MyFileTestCase extends UnitTestCase {
  5.         ...
  6.     }
  7.     SimpleTest::ignore('MyFileTestCase');
  8.  
  9.     class FileTester extends MyFileTestCase { ... }
  10.  
  11.     class SocketTester extends UnitTestCase { ... }
  12. ?>
The FileTester class does not contain any actual tests, but is a base class for other test cases. For this reason we use the SimpleTestOptions::ignore() directive to tell the upcoming group test to ignore it. This directive can appear anywhere in the file and works when a whole file of test cases is loaded (see below).

If you are using PHP 5, you do not need this special directive at all. Simply mark any test cases that should not be run as abstract...

  1. abstract class MyFileTestCase extends UnitTestCase {
  2.     ...
  3. }
  4.  
  5. class FileTester extends MyFileTestCase { ... }
  6.  
  7. class SocketTester extends UnitTestCase { ... }

We will call this sample file_test.php. Next we create a group test file, called say my_group_test.php. You will think of a better name I am sure.

We will add the test file using a safe method...

  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
  3.     require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
  4.     require_once('file_test.php');
  5.  
  6.     $test = &new TestSuite('All file tests');
  7.     $test->addTestCase(new FileTestCase());
  8.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  9. ?>
This instantiates the test case before the test suite is run. This could get a little expensive with a large number of test cases, and can be surprising behaviour.

The main problem is that for every test case that we add we will have to require_once() the test code file and manually instantiate each and every test case.

We can save a lot of typing with...

  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
  3.     require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
  4.  
  5.     $test = &new TestSuite('All file tests');
  6.     $test->addTestFile('file_test.php');
  7.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  8. ?&gt;
What happens here is that the TestSuite class has done the require_once() for us. It then checks to see if any new test case classes have been created by the new file and automatically adds them to the group test. Now all we have to do is add each new file.

No only that, but you can guarantee that the constructor is run just before the first test method and, in PHP 5, the destructor is run just after the last test method.

There are two things that could go wrong and which require care... The file could already have been parsed by PHP, and so no new classes will have been added. You should make sure that the test cases are only included in this file and no others (Note : with the new autorun functionnality, this problem has now been solved). New test case extension classes that get included will be placed in the group test and run also. You will need to add a SimpleTestOptions::ignore() directive for these classes, or make sure that they are included before the TestSuite::addTestFile() line, or make sure that they are abstract classes.

Composite suites

The above method places all of the test cases into one large group. For larger projects though this may not be flexible enough; you may want to group the tests in all sorts of ways.

To get a more flexible group test we can subclass TestSuite and then instantiate it as needed...

  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
  3.     require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
  4.     
  5.     class FileTestSuite extends TestSuite {
  6.         function FileTestSuite() {
  7.             $this->TestSuite('All file tests');
  8.             $this->addTestFile('file_test.php');
  9.         }}
  10. ?>
This effectively names the test in the constructor and then adds our test cases and a single group below. Of course we can add more than one group at this point. We can now invoke the tests from a separate runner file...
  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('file_test_suite.php');
  3.     
  4.     $test = &new FileTestSuite();
  5.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  6. ?>
...or we can group them into even larger group tests. We can even mix groups and test cases freely as long as we are careful about double includes...
  1. <?php
  2.     
  3.     $test = &new BigTestSuite('Big group');
  4.     $test->addTestFile('file_test_suite.php');
  5.     $test->addTestFile('some_test_case.php');
  6.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  7. ?>
In the event of a double include, ony the first instance of the test case will be run.

If we still wish to run the original group test, and we don't want all of these little runner files, we can put the test runner code around guard bars when we create each group.

  1. <?php
  2.     class FileTestSuite extends TestSuite {
  3.         function FileTestSuite() {
  4.             $this->TestSuite('All file tests');
  5.             $test->addTestFile('file_test.php');
  6.         }}
  7.     
  8.     if (! defined('RUNNER')) {
  9.         define('RUNNER', true);
  10.         $test = &new FileTestSuite();
  11.         $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  12.     }
  13. ?>
This approach requires the guard to be set when including the group test file, but this is still less hassle than lots of separate runner files. You include the same guard on the top level tests to make sure that run() will run once only from the top level script that has been invoked.
  1. <?php
  2.     define('RUNNER', true);
  3.     require_once('file_test_suite.php');
  4.  
  5.     $test = &new BigTestSuite('Big group');
  6.     $test->addTestCase(new FileTestSuite());
  7.     $test->addTestCase(...);
  8.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  9. ?>
As with the normal test cases, a TestSuite can be loaded with the TestSuite::addTestFile() method.
  1. <?php
  2.     define('RUNNER', true);
  3.  
  4.     $test = &new BigTestSuite('Big group');
  5.     $test->addTestFile('file_test_suite.php');
  6.     $test->addTestFile(...);
  7.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  8. ?>

Integrating legacy test cases

If you already have unit tests for your code or are extending external classes that have tests, it is unlikely that all of the test cases are in SimpleTest format. Fortunately it is possible to incorporate test cases from other unit testers directly into SimpleTest group tests.

Say we have the following PhpUnit test case in the file config_test.php...

  1. class ConfigFileTest extends TestCase {
  2.     function ConfigFileTest() {
  3.         $this->TestCase('Config file test');
  4.     }
  5.     
  6.     function testContents() {
  7.         $config = new ConfigFile('test.conf');
  8.         $this->assertRegexp('/me/', $config->getValue('username'));
  9.     }
  10. }
The group test can recognise this as long as we include the appropriate adapter class before we add the test file...
  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
  3.     require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
  4.     require_once('simpletest/adapters/phpunit_test_case.php');
  5.  
  6.     $test = &new TestSuite('All file tests');
  7.     $test->addTestFile('config_test.php');
  8.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  9. ?>
There are only two adapters, the other is for the PEAR 1.0 unit tester...
  1. <?php
  2.     require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
  3.     require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
  4.     require_once('simpletest/adapters/pear_test_case.php');
  5.  
  6.     $test = &new TestSuite('All file tests');
  7.     $test->addTestFile('some_pear_test_cases.php');
  8.     $test->run(new HtmlReporter());
  9. ?>
The PEAR test cases can be freely mixed with SimpleTest ones even in the same test file, but you cannot use SimpleTest assertions in the legacy test case versions. This is done as a check that you are not accidently making your test cases completely dependent on SimpleTest. You may want to do a PEAR release of your library for example, which would mean shipping it with valid PEAR::PhpUnit test cases.

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Documentation generated on Sun, 04 May 2008 09:21:08 -0500 by phpDocumentor 1.3.0