PHP Testing Tools

Quality testing is one of the crucial aspects of software development that should never be neglected. It may cost time and money to acquire high-quality test tools but in the long run, it results in faster and better software development.

Additionally, let me help you save your efforts and time by recommending the five best test tools for PHP.

StoryPlayer

It is the tool that is used for automating both the functional and non-functional requirements of the code written in PHP. It is built by Data Sift. It is used to test both the Back-end and Front-end of your websites. It is modular and easy to use. The Latest version of StoryPlayer that is available in the market is version 1.5.

Tool Features:

• Used for testing web-app or API.
• Used for the component as well as end-to-end testing.
• Testing End-to-End platforms.
• Designed for both Developers and Testers.
• Can also use for testing code written in other languages other than PHP.
• Works with web browsers and platform combinations.
• Can be extended with own Plugins.

Pros:

• Open source.
• Simple and easy to test and debug the code.
• Used for cross-browser testing.
• Install via Composer.

Cons:

• Without the installation of a composer, it will not work.
• If no knowledge of PHP, then it takes time to understand the test cases developed in PHP.

Pricing:

As it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market.

Click here for the Download link.

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Codeception

Codeception is an Automated Testing Framework which can be used for acceptance testing of web applications but can also be used for unit testing as well as functional testing of web apps. Test execution speed in Codeception is high, hence it is one of the most widely preferable frameworks for testing in PHP.

Tool Features:

• It is simple to use and a compact one.
• It supports more than one testing suites i.e. Acceptance, Unit and Functional.
• It works better when integrated with Selenium.
• It makes code easy to read, write and debug.
• It is also called as BDD (Behavior Driven Development).

Pros:

• Lots of features are available for testing low levels like Unit testing or high levels like API or BDD testing.
• It can be used with other frameworks also for testing.
• It is totally based on PHP, so test cases are also written in that and programmer doesn’t need to learn different languages for that.

Cons:

• Configuration is not simple and easier.
• It doesn’t have much resources and documentation.
• It is totally based on PHP so if the developers don’t know PHP then they can’t write the test cases for the software.

Pricing:

As it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market.

Click here for the Download Link.

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PHPUnit

PHPUnit is the most commonly used PHP testing framework, and it is considered a programmer-oriented framework. It is mostly preferred for unit testing. It was developed by Sebastian Bergmann and is an instance of the xUnit framework architecture.

Steps To Install

There are a few prerequisites that must be satisfied before installing this framework. Firstly, you need to install a higher version of PHP for installing the latest version of PHPUnit. As per their official documentation, it is recommended to use PHP version 7.3 for PHPUnit 9.3, the latest PHPUnit version. Below are the steps to install PHPUnit in your system.

Step 1: PHPUnit can be installed by downloading the PHAR (PHP Archive) from the below link
https://www.php.net/phar

PHAR has all the required PHPUnit dependencies bundled in a single file.

Step 2: You may also install Composer which manages all the dependencies in the project.

Advantages Of Using PHPUnit Framework

PHPUnit is considered one of the best PHP frameworks due to several reasons. Listed below are some of the advantages of using PHPUnit for automated testing-

1. It is one of the frameworks which allows us to analyze the code coverage efficiently. Based on an in-depth analysis, it can also generate code coverage reports in HTML and also XML log files with more information. Sometimes there might be a few blocks of code that cannot be tested. In such cases, we can use different annotations like @codeCoverageIgnore, @codeCoverageIgnoreStart, and @codeCoverageIgnoreEnd, which are used to ignore certain code blocks while running through code coverage analysis. We can also run the code coverage analysis for certain code blocks by specifying them with @covers annotation.
2. While writing the test cases, some tests would be left without any implementations. When executed, those cases return a success message, but it isn’t very meaningful to have such a report. PHPUnit provides an interface that raises an exception when an unimplemented test is run.
3. All the tests can be grouped together into a suite and run at once with the help of an XML configuration file.A simple XML configuration file would look like below-

123	tests/FirstTest.php      tests/SecondTest.php      tests/ThirdTest.php

Codeception

Codeception is one of the most widely used PHP testing frameworks, and it has gained immense popularity because of ease of use and its ability to maintain the code modules. It supports three levels of testing, namely acceptance testing, functional testing, and unit testing. It provides multiple modules that can be utilized for testing purposes in a single framework.

Let us see the steps to install Codeception and the advantages of using this automated testing framework.

Steps To Install

Before you install Codeception, you need to know if the prerequisites are met. You will need-

1. PHP with version greater than 5.6 installed in your machine
2. Curl has to be enabled

Once you have met the prerequisites, you need to follow the below-mentioned steps to proceed further-

Step 1: Install composer which is used for managing the dependencies in PHP. It helps in declaring the libraries to be used in the project and manages them.

You may install using a setup file or you can even do it manually. You can install the composer from their official website.

Step 2: Install PHAR, and you may install it from the official website of Codeception.

Advantages Of Using Codeception Framework

1. It supports Unit testing, functional testing, as well as acceptance testing. We can opt for any of the three types of testing or sometimes can opt for all three to test the application effectively. If you are wondering, this is the exact reason why it is also known as a ‘full stack testing framework.’
2. It uses simple naming conventions, which helps everyone to understand the code. It contains action keywords, assertions, and grabbers. The actions keywords are used to perform user actions like clicking, pressing the keys, filling the input fields, etc. The assertion keywords are used to perform the verification like the one that is done using TestNG and Junit. The grabbers are used to extract the information.
3. It also provides an option of running the user stories in BDD like JBehave and Cucumber.
4. It provides various database modules, which would be quite helpful in database testing.
5. It has a WebDriver module, which could be used for acceptance testing.
6. It has a REST module, which could be very helpful for testing web services. This module also validates the JSON responses, extracting data from specific JSON tags, verifying xml responses, etc.
7. It helps integrate with continuous integration tools like Jenkins and Teamcity, which would help generate the test reports.

SeleniumHQ

Selenium is the one of most popularly used automated testing frameworks that has been extensively used for testing web applications. It has four main components namely-

1. Selenium IDE
2. Selenium RC
3. Selenium WebDriver
4. Selenium Grid

These components are designed for specific purposes, and the selection of the component purely depends upon our testing requirements.

Steps To Install

To work with Selenium, you need to set up the latest version of PHP. Also, it is required to have Composer, which manages all the dependencies for our project.

Advantages Of Using Selenium Framework

1. Selenium is an open source automation testing framework.
2. It has an amazing support community.
3. It is easy to install, and test case implementation is quite easy as well.
4. It allows us to run our test cases in different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and allows seamless browser compatibility testing.
5. It executes our test scripts in parallel in multiple browsers and operating systems for faster test execution.
6. It is also used to perform the keyboard and mouse interactions with the browser.

LambdaTest

How To Overcome The Limitations Of Selenium With LambdaTest Selenium Grid?

LambdaTest offers a great platform to run your automation scripts on a cloud Selenium Grid and achieve faster test execution. There are endless benefits of running the tests in the LambdaTest grid.

1. Quick and easy setup to run your automation scripts.
2. Execute your tests in different browsers with different versions.
3. Integration with various continuous integration and deployment tools.
4. Allows to define various parameters like browser name, version of the browser, operating system.
5. Provides the option to take screenshots and record videos while executing the test cases.
6. Most importantly, it provides 24X7 customer support and detailed documentation.

Below is the simple code to search a product on Google using LambdaTest grid-

	<?php
	require ‘vendor/autoload.php’;
	class LambdaTestGrid{
	/*
	Setting up remote driver in LambdaTestGrid
	Params
	———-
	platform : Supported platform – (Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, macOS High Sierra, macOS Sierra, OS X El Capitan, OS X Yosemite, OS X Mavericks)
	browserName : Supported platform – (chrome, firefox, Internet Explorer, MicrosoftEdge, Safari)
	version : Supported list of version can be found at https://www.lambdatest.com/capabilities-generator/
	*/
	protected static $driver;
	public function searchTextOnGoogle() {
	# username: replace your username that can be found in your LambdaTest dashboard
	$LT_USERNAME = “{username}”;
	# accessKey: replace your access token that has been generated once you signed up
	$LT_APPKEY = “{accessKey}”;
	$LT_BROWSER = “chrome”;
	$LT_BROWSER_VERSION =”70.0″;
	$LT_PLATFORM = “windows 10”;
	# URL: https://{username}:{accessToken}@hub.lambdatest.com/wd/hub
	$url = “https://”. $LT_USERNAME .”:” . $LT_APPKEY .”@hub.lambdatest.com/wd/hub”;
	# setting desired capabilities for the test
	$desired_capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘browserName’,$LT_BROWSER);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘version’, $LT_BROWSER_VERSION);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘platform’, $LT_PLATFORM);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘name’, “Php”);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘build’, “Php Build”);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘network’, true);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘visual’, true);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘video ‘, true);
	$desired_capabilities->setCapability(‘console’, true);
	self::$driver = RemoteWebDriver::create($url, $desired_capabilities);
	//specify the browser URL
	self::$driver->get(“https://www.google.com/”);
	//specify the locator of the search box
	$element = self::$driver->findElement(WebDriverBy::name(“q”));
	if($element) {
	//type the name to be searched in the google search box
	$element->sendKeys(“IPhone”);
	$element->submit();
	}
	print self::$driver->getTitle();
	self::$driver->quit();
	}
	}
	?>

view rawlambdatest-grid.php hosted with  by GitHub

Once the tests have been executed, you can view the logs and other builds related information in the Automation dashboard. Thus, running the tests in LambdaTest Grid improves the execution speed and also provides efficient results.

SimpleTest

It is used for the unit as well as Web testing framework. It supports proxies, SSI, forms, frames etc. If you are using JUnit then you will find more easy to use it. It is the part of Drupal core.

Tool features:

• Used for unit testing.
• Supports simplest HTML display.
• Test cases are autoloading.
• Handles cookies when fetching various pages.
• Test cases are displayed, without a web browser.
• Supports Proxy, SSI, forms, frames etc.

Pros:

• It tests every part.
• Easy to understand and find bugs if unit testing is done.
• Execution will be fast.

Cons:

• Mocking is complicated.
• Can’t say that every part of the system will work correctly.

Pricing:

As it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market.

Click here for the Download link.

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Behat

It is a framework for testing the PHP code. It is used for testing Behavior-driven development.

It is an open-source testing framework. It is highly extensible, hence many extensions are present. It is very easy to understand as it starts by writing human-readable sentences.

Tool Features:

• Supports BDD for testing.
• It is introduced in the language called Gherkin which is business readable.
• Helps to remove logic details from the behavior test.

Pros:

• It is BDD and human readable so if a person who doesn’t know the programming language can also write the features easily.
• Maintenance of test cases is easier and understandable.

Cons:

• For API testing it needs few other tools to support or integrate with it.
• The Programmer needs to understand the language Gherkin.

Pricing:

As it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market for testers and developers.

Click here for the Download Link.

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Xdebug

It is an open source testing framework for PHP that is used for development and debugging of codes. The protocol which is used for debugging is DBGp protocol. It supports code coverage analysis and profiler for integrating with the PHPUnit.

Tool Features:

• When an error condition occurs, it shows stack traces.
• Used for profiling usage of memory.
• Support Code coverage analysis.
• Used in debugging code remotely.
• Logs function in a different file format.
• It has inbuilt Garbage Collection Statistics.

Pros:

• Remote Debugging available to debug the code easily.
• Installation is simple and easy.
• Code optimization is better due to the profiler.

Cons:

• Used only for end-to-end testing.
• If using Zend extension, then you can’t use that with Xdebug.

Pricing:

As it is an open source tool, it is available at no cost in the market.

Click here for the Download Link.

Conclusion

Sometimes we need unit testing for PHP project. It is very hard to understand, to learn the complete. I think, if you don’t know any tool or automation for this unit testing, it is very easy to get lost. There are so many different tools for this, but everyone has their own features and benefits. Let’s take a look at main 3 tools: PHPUnit, Codeception and PHPSpec.