Testing Cake applications

In this tutorial we will show you how to test a Cake application. We will set up the software necessary for testing, and then do a simple unit test (aka programmer test). Read the upcoming functional_testing_cake_apps for more on functional testing (aka user testing).

Let’s start with the configuration.

1. Check out the test-cases from trunk/test_suites/0.10.x.x/, using your favourite Subversion client.
2. Or download it from: http://cakeforge.org/frs/?group_id=62

• How to install simpletest: Unpack simpletest in the vendors directory of your CakePHP installation.
• For just the files: Sourceforge project page for SimpleTest

1. Move all the test_suites items in app to your application, and place the files in the folders where they belong to. If you use a non-standard cake installation, i.e. you have edited app/webroot/index.php, you have to edit app/webroot/test/index.php, too.
2. Visiting the now installed /tests/ sub-application of your Cake install gives you the Cake testing interface. (So, tests is both a sub-application, and a controller in your application.)

If you want to use a special database configuration for testing purposes, you have to add the following code snippet to your app/config/database.php:

function __construct () 
{
    if (strstr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/tests')) 
    {
    	$this->default = $this->test;
    }
}

All test cases should have the file suffix .test.php.
Example: controller.test.php

All group tests should have the file suffix .group.php.
Example: controller.group.php

So, let’s start with a _simple_ test-case. We are going to test the Inflector::singularize library method, with a word we know how to singularize. The method’s in /cake/libs/inflector.php, but we just need to know that it returns a string with the given word in singular.

To write a test for this method, we start by subclassing the SimpleTest class UnitTestCase:

<?php
 
class SingularizeTestCase extends UnitTestCase 
{
}
?>
 

Now, we include the code we want to test:

<?php
 
uses("inflector"); // Include external code to test. 
                   //(This could be a normal require(), but this is a library, so we use uses()
 
class SingularizeTestCase extends UnitTestCase 
{
}
?>

Finally, we write a method on this testcase that asserts some state:

<?php
 
uses("inflector"); // Include external code to test.
 
class SingularizeTestCase extends UnitTestCase 
{
    /**
      * Tests whether "monkey" is returned from singularizing "monkeys".
      */
	function testSingularizingMonkey()
	{
		$a = Inflector::singularize("monkeys");
		$this->assertEqual( "monkey", $a );
	}
}
?>

You can execute your tests in two ways: on the one hand you can run them inside of the Cake framework with /yourapp/tests, or, on the other hand, you can run them outside of the Cake framework with /yourapp/tests/index.php.

NOTES:

Olle: Since I am running my Cake app in a subfolder, I had to edit some absolute paths in the application tests, to get the CSS and the graphics from my application. When that was done I could add a test case at /tests/app/controllers/products_controller.test.php, which I was able to run. All the paths for the links I also edited.

Refer to the API docs for SimpleTest to see the long list of asserts we can perform in the test methods. SimpleTest API documentation. More specifically, we want to look at the Unit tester tutorial part of the API docs.

Article by SimpleTest’s author: Coding a login box shouldn't hurt

Tutorial on SimpleTest

develop:simpletest_mock_functions [phpPatterns]