silverstripe-framework/docs/en/02_Developer_Guides/06_Testing/index.md

summary: Deploy robust applications by bundling Unit and Behavior tests with your application code and modules.

Unit and Integration Testing

For behaviour testing in SilverStripe, check out SilverStripe Behat Documentation.

Introduction

The SilverStripe core contains various features designed to simplify the process of creating and managing automated tests.

SilverStripe uses PHPUnit for unit tests, and the framework contains features to simplify the process of creating and managing tests.

If you're more familiar with unit testing, but want a refresher of some of the concepts and terminology, you can browse the Testing Glossary. To get started now, follow the installation instructions below.

If you are familiar with PHP coding but new to unit testing then check out Mark's presentation Getting to Grips with SilverStripe Testing.

You should also read over the PHPUnit manual. It provides a lot of fundamental concepts that we build on in this documentation.

Unit tests are not included in the zip/tar.gz SilverStripe downloads so to get them, install SilverStripe with composer.

Invoking phpunit

Once you have used composer to create your project, cd to your project root. Composer will have installed PHPUnit alongside the required PHP classes into the vendor/bin/ directory.

If you don't want to invoke PHPUnit through its full path (vendor/bin/phpunit), add ./vendor/bin to your $PATH, or symlink phpunit into the root directory of your website:

• PATH=./vendor/bin:$PATH in your shell's profile script; or
• ln -s vendor/bin/phpunit phpunit at the command prompt in your project root

Configuration

phpunit.xml

The phpunit executable can be configured by command line arguments or through an XML file. File-based configuration has the advantage of enforcing certain rules across test executions (e.g. excluding files from code coverage reports), and of course this information can be version controlled and shared with other team members.

Note: This doesn't apply for running tests through the "sake" wrapper

SilverStripe comes with a default phpunit.xml.dist that you can use as a starting point. Copy the file into a new phpunit.xml and customise to your needs - PHPUnit will auto-detect its existence, and prioritize it over the default file.

There's nothing stopping you from creating multiple XML files (see the --configuration flag in PHPUnit documentation). For example, you could have a phpunit-unit-tests.xml and phpunit-functional-tests.xml file (see below).

Database Permissions

SilverStripe tests create thier own database when they are run. Because of this the database user in your config file should have the appropriate permissions to create new databases on your server, otherwise tests will not run.

Writing Tests

Tests are written by creating subclasses of [api:SapphireTest]. You should put tests for your site in the mysite/tests directory. If you are writing tests for a module, put them in the (modulename)/tests directory.

Generally speaking, there should be one test class for each application class. The name of the test class should be the application class, with "Test" as a suffix. For instance, we have all the tests for SiteTree in framework/tests/SiteTreeTest.php

You will generally write two different kinds of test classes.

• Unit Test: Test the behaviour of one of your DataObjects.
• Functional Test: Test the behaviour of one of your controllers.

Tutorials and recipes for creating tests using the SilverStripe framework:

• Creating a SilverStripe test: Writing tests to check core data objects
• Creating a functional test: An overview of functional tests and how to write a functional test
• Testing Outgoing Email: An overview of the built-in email testing code

Running Tests

Via the "phpunit" Binary on Command Line

The phpunit binary should be used from the root directory of your website.

# Runs all tests defined in phpunit.xml
phpunit

# Run all tests of a specific module
phpunit framework/tests/

# Run specific tests within a specific module
phpunit framework/tests/filesystem

# Run a specific test
phpunit framework/tests/filesystem/FolderTest.php

# Run tests with optional `$_GET` parameters (you need an empty second argument)
phpunit framework/tests '' flush=all

All command-line arguments are documented on phpunit.de.

Via the "sake" Wrapper on Command Line

The sake executable that comes with SilverStripe can trigger a customised [api:TestRunner] class that handles the PHPUnit configuration and output formatting. While the custom test runner a handy tool, its also more limited than using phpunit directly, particularly around formatting test output.

# Run all tests
sake dev/tests/all

# Run all tests of a specific module (comma-separated)
sake dev/tests/module/framework,cms

# Run specific tests (comma-separated)
sake dev/tests/FolderTest,OtherTest

# Run tests with optional `$_GET` parameters
sake dev/tests/all flush=all

# Skip some tests
sake dev/tests/all SkipTests=MySkippedTest

Via Web Browser

Executing tests from the command line is recommended, since it most closely reflects test runs in any automated testing environments. However, you can also run tests through the browser:

http://localhost/dev/tests