Test reporter documentation

SimpleTest pretty much follows the MVC pattern (Model-View-Controller). The reporter classes are the view and the model is your test cases and their hiearchy. The controller is mostly hidden from the user of SimpleTest unless you want to change how the test cases are actually run, in which case it is possible to override the runner objects from within the test case. As usual with MVC, the controller is mostly undefined and there are other places to control the test run.

class HtmlReporter extends SimpleReporter {
    public HtmlReporter($encoding) { ... }
    public makeDry(boolean $is_dry) { ... }
    public void paintHeader(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void sendNoCacheHeaders() { ... }
    public void paintFooter(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintGroupStart(string $test_name, integer $size) { ... }
    public void paintGroupEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintCaseStart(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintCaseEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintMethodStart(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintMethodEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
    public void paintFail(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintPass(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintError(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintException(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintMessage(string $message) { ... }
    public void paintFormattedMessage(string $message) { ... }
    protected string _getCss() { ... }
    public array getTestList() { ... }
    public integer getPassCount() { ... }
    public integer getFailCount() { ... }
    public integer getExceptionCount() { ... }
    public integer getTestCaseCount() { ... }
    public integer getTestCaseProgress() { ... }
}

• HtmlReporter(string $encoding)
  is the constructor. Note that the unit test sets up the link to the display rather than the other way around. The display is a mostly passive receiver of test events. This allows easy adaption of the display for other test systems beside unit tests, such as monitoring servers. The encoding is the character encoding you wish to display the test output in. In order to correctly render debug output when using the web tester, this should match the encoding of the site you are trying to test. The available character set strings are described in the PHP html_entities() function.
• void paintHeader(string $test_name)
  is called once at the very start of the test when the first start event arrives. The first start event is usually delivered by the top level group test and so this is where $test_name comes from. It paints the page titles, CSS, body tag, etc. It returns nothing (void).
• void paintFooter(string $test_name)
  Called at the very end of the test to close any tags opened by the page header. By default it also displays the red/green bar and the final count of results. Actually the end of the test happens when a test end event comes in with the same name as the one that started it all at the same level. The tests nest you see. Closing the last test finishes the display.
• void paintMethodStart(string $test_name)
  is called at the start of each test method. The name normally comes from method name. The other test start events behave the same way except that the group test one tells the reporter how large it is in number of held test cases. This is so that the reporter can display a progress bar as the runner churns through the test cases.
• void paintMethodEnd(string $test_name)
  backs out of the test started with the same name.
• void paintFail(string $message)
  paints a failure. By default it just displays the word fail, a breadcrumbs trail showing the current test nesting and the message issued by the assertion.
• void paintPass(string $message)
  by default does nothing.
• string _getCss()
  Returns the CSS styles as a string for the page header method. Additional styles have to be appended here if you are not overriding the page header. You will want to use this method in an overriden page header if you want to include the original CSS.

• array getTestList()
  is the first convenience method for subclasses. Lists the current nesting of the tests as a list of test names. The first, most deeply nested test, is first in the list and the current test method will be last.
• integer getPassCount()
  returns the number of passes chalked up so far. Needed for the display at the end.
• integer getFailCount()
  is likewise the number of fails so far.
• integer getExceptionCount()
  is likewise the number of errors so far.
• integer getTestCaseCount()
  is the total number of test cases in the test run. This includes the grouping tests themselves.
• integer getTestCaseProgress()
  is the number of test cases completed so far.

class ShowPasses extends HtmlReporter {
    
    function paintPass($message) {
        parent::paintPass($message);
        print "&<span class=\"pass\">Pass</span>: ";
        $breadcrumb = $this->getTestList();
        array_shift($breadcrumb);
        print implode("->", $breadcrumb);
        print "->$message<br />\n";
    }
    
    function _getCss() {
        return parent::_getCss() . ' .pass { color: green; }';
    }
}

One method that was glossed over was the makeDry() method. If you run this method, with no parameters, on the reporter before the test suite is run no actual test methods will be called. You will still get the events of entering and leaving the test methods and test cases, but no passes or failures etc, because the test code will not actually be executed.

The reason for this is to allow for more sophistcated GUI displays that allow the selection of individual test cases. In order to build a list of possible tests they need a report on the test structure for drawing, say a tree view of the test suite. With a reporter set to dry run that just sends drawing events this is easily accomplished.

require_once('simpletest/simple_test.php');

class MyDisplay extends SimpleReporter {
    
    function paintHeader($test_name) {
    }
    
    function paintFooter($test_name) {
    }
    
    function paintStart($test_name, $size) {
        parent::paintStart($test_name, $size);
    }
    
    function paintEnd($test_name, $size) {
        parent::paintEnd($test_name, $size);
    }
    
    function paintPass($message) {
        parent::paintPass($message);
    }
    
    function paintFail($message) {
        parent::paintFail($message);
    }
}

<?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

$test = &new TestSuite('File test');
$test->addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
$test->run(new TextReporter());
?>

php file_test.php

File test
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0

File test
1) True assertion failed.
    in createnewfile
FAILURES!!!
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 1, Exceptions: 0

<?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

$test = &new TestSuite('File test');
$test->addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
exit ($test->run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);
?>

<?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');

$test = &new TestSuite('File test');
$test->addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
if (TextReporter::inCli()) {
    exit ($test->run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);
}
$test->run(new HtmlReporter());
?>

  
    Remote tests
    
      Visual test with 48 passes, 48 fails and 4 exceptions
      
        testofunittestcaseoutput
        
          testofresults
          This assertion passed
          This assertion failed
        
        
          ...
        
      
    
  

]]>

<?php
require_once('simpletest/xml.php');
    
...
$parser = &new SimpleTestXmlParser(new HtmlReporter());
$parser->parse($test_output);
?>

<?php
require_once('../remote.php');
require_once('../reporter.php');
    
$test_url = ...;
$dry_url = ...;
    
$test = &new TestSuite('Remote tests');
$test->addTestCase(new RemoteTestCase($test_url, $dry_url));
$test->run(new HtmlReporter());
?>

Displaying results in HTML

Displaying and reporting results in other formats

Using SimpleTest from the command line

Using Using XML for remote testing

SimpleTest project page on SourceForge.

SimpleTest download page on LastCraft.

The developer's API for SimpleTest gives full detail on the classes and assertions available.