* This article is part of the original Jobeet Tutorial, created by Fabien Potencier, for Symfony 1.4.

Tests in Symfony

There are two different kinds of automated tests in Symfony: unit tests and functional tests. Unit tests verify that each method and function is working properly. Each test must be as independent as possible from the others. On the other hand, functional tests verify that the resulting application behaves correctly as a whole.

Unit tests will be covered in this post, whereas the next post will be dedicated to funcional tests.

Symfony2 integrates with an independent library, the PHPUnit, to give you a rich testing framework. To run tests, you will have to install PHPUnit 3.5.11 or later.

If you don’t have PHPUnit installed, use the following to get it:

sudo apt-get install phpunit
sudo pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
sudo pear channel-discover pear.symfony-project.com
sudo pear channel-discover components.ez.no
sudo pear channel-discover pear.symfony.com
sudo pear update-channels
sudo pear upgrade-all
sudo pear install pear.symfony.com/Yaml
sudo pear install --alldeps phpunit/PHPUnit
sudo pear install --force --alldeps phpunit/PHPUnit

Each test – whether it’s a unit test or a functional test – is a PHP class that should live in the Tests/ subdirectory of your bundles. If you follow this rule, then you can run all of your application’s tests with the following command:

phpunit -c app/

The -c option tells PHPUnit to look in the app/ directory for a configuration file. If you’re curious about the PHPUnit options, check out the app/phpunit.xml.dist file.

A unit test is usually a test against a specific PHP class. Let’s start by writing tests for the Jobeet:slugify() method.

Create a new file, JobeetTest.php, in the src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils folder. By convention, the Tests/ subdirectory should replicate the directory of your bundle. So, when we are testing a class in our bundle’s Utils/ directory, we put the test in the Tests/Utils/ directory:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsUtils;

use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet;

class JobeetTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function testSlugify()
    {
        $this->assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify('Sensio'));
        $this->assertEquals('sensio-labs', Jobeet::slugify('sensio labs'));
        $this->assertEquals('sensio-labs', Jobeet::slugify('sensio labs'));
        $this->assertEquals('paris-france', Jobeet::slugify('paris,france'));
        $this->assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify(' sensio'));
        $this->assertEquals('sensio', Jobeet::slugify('sensio '));
    }
}

To run only this test, you can use the following command:

phpunit -c app/ src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils/JobeetTest

As everything should work fine, you should get the following result:

PHPUnit 3.7.22 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from /var/www/jobeet/app/phpunit.xml.dist

.

Time: 0 seconds, Memory: 8.00Mb

OK (1 test, 6 assertions)

For a full list of assertions, you can check the PHPUnit documentation.

Adding Tests for new Features

The slug for an empty string is an empty string. You can test it, it will work. But an empty string in a URL is not that a great idea. Let’s change the slugify() method so that it returns the “n-a” string in case of an empty string.

You can write the test first, then update the method, or the other way around. It is really a matter of taste, but writing the test first gives you the confidence that your code actually implements what you planned:

// ...

$this->assertEquals('n-a', Jobeet::slugify(''));

// ...

Now, if we run the test again, we will have a failure:

PHPUnit 3.7.22 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from /var/www/jobeet/app/phpunit.xml.dist

F

Time: 0 seconds, Memory: 8.25Mb

There was 1 failure:

1) IbwJobeetBundleTestsUtilsJobeetTest::testSlugify
Failed asserting that two strings are equal.
--- Expected
+++ Actual
@@ @@
-'n-a'
+''

/var/www/jobeet/src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Utils/JobeetTest.php:13

FAILURES!
Tests: 1, Assertions: 5, Failures: 1.

Now, edit the Jobeet::slugify method and add the following condition at the beginning:

// ...

    static public function slugify($text)
    {
        if (empty($text)) {
            return 'n-a';
        }

        // ...
    }

The test must now pass as expected, and you can enjoy the green bar.

Adding Tests because of a Bug

Let’s say that time has passed and one of your users reports a weird bug: some job links point to a 404 error page. After some investigation, you find that for some reason, these jobs have an empty company, position, or location slug.

How is it possible?

You look through the records in the database and the columns are definitely not empty. You think about it for a while, and bingo, you find the cause. When a string only contains non-ASCII characters, the slugify() method converts it to an empty string. So happy to have found the cause, you open the Jobeet class and fix the problem right away. That’s a bad idea. First, let’s add a test:

$this->assertEquals('n-a', Jobeet::slugify(' - '));

After checking that the test does not pass, edit the Jobeet class and move the empty string check to the end of the method:

static public function slugify($text)
{
    // ...

    if (empty($text))
    {
        return 'n-a';
    }

    return $text;
}

The new test now passes, as do all the other ones. The slugify() had a bug despite our 100% coverage.

You cannot think about all edge cases when writing tests, and that’s fine. But when you discover one, you need to write a test for it before fixing your code. It also means that your code will get better over time, which is always a good thing.

Towards a better slugify Method

You probably know that symfony has been created by French people, so let’s add a test with a French word that contains an “accent”:

$this->assertEquals('developpeur-web', Jobeet::slugify('Développeur Web'));

The test must fail. Instead of replacing é by e, the slugify() method has replaced it by a dash (-). That’s a tough problem, called transliteration. Hopefully, if you have iconv Library installed, it will do the job for us. Replace the code of the slugify method with the following:

The test must fail. Instead of replacing é by e, the slugify() method has replaced it by a dash (-). That’s a tough problem, called transliteration. Hopefully, if you have iconv Library installed, it will do the job for us. Replace the code of the slugify method with the following:

static public function slugify($text)
{
    // replace non letter or digits by -
    $text = preg_replace('#[^\pLd]+#u', '-', $text);

    // trim
    $text = trim($text, '-');

    // transliterate
    if (function_exists('iconv'))
    {
        $text = iconv('utf-8', 'us-ascii//TRANSLIT', $text);
    }

    // lowercase
    $text = strtolower($text);

    // remove unwanted characters
    $text = preg_replace('#[^-w]+#', '', $text);

    if (empty($text))
    {
        return 'n-a';
    }

    return $text;
}

Remember to save all your PHP files with the UTF-8 encoding, as this is the default Symfony encoding, and the one used by iconv to do the transliteration.

Also change the test file to run the test only if iconv is available:

if (function_exists('iconv')) {
    $this->assertEquals('developpeur-web', Jobeet::slugify('Développeur Web'));
}

Code Coverage

When you write tests, it is easy to forget a portion of the code. If you add a new feature or you just want to verify your code coverage statistics, all you need to do is to check the code coverage by using the --coverage-html option:

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app/
Check the code coverage by opening the generated http://jobeet.local/cov/index.html page in a browser.

The code coverage only works if you have XDebug enabled and all dependencies installed.

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug

Your cov/index.html should look like this:

day 8 - code coverage1

Keep in mind that when this indicates that your code is fully unit tested, it just means that each line has been executed, not that all the edge cases have been tested.

Doctrine Unit Tests

Unit testing a Doctrine model class is a bit more complex as it requires a database connection. You already have the one you use for your development, but it is a good habit to create a dedicated database for tests.

At the beginning of this tutorial, we introduced the environments as a way to vary an application’s settings. By default, all symfony tests are run in the test environment, so let’s configure a different database for the test environment:

Go to your app/config directory and create a copy of parameters.yml file, called parameters_test.yml. Open parameters_test.yml and change the name of your database to jobeet_test. For this to be imported, we have to add it in the config_test.yml file :

imports:
    - { resource: config_dev.yml }
    - { resource: parameters_test.yml }
// ...

Testing the Job Entity

First, we need to create the JobTest.php file in the Tests/Entity folder.

The setUp function will manipulate your database each time you will run the test. At first, it will drop your current database, then it will re-create it and load data from fixtures in it. This will help you have the same initial data in the database you created for the test environment before running the tests.

namespace IbwJobeetBundleEntity;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use IbwJobeetBundleUtilsJobeet as Jobeet;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testGetCompanySlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getCompanySlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getCompany()));
    }

    public function testGetPositionSlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getPositionSlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getPosition()));
    }

    public function testGetLocationSlug()
    {
        $job = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j ')
            ->setMaxResults(1)
            ->getSingleResult();

        $this->assertEquals($job->getLocationSlug(), Jobeet::slugify($job->getLocation()));
    }

    public function testSetExpiresAtValue()
    {
        $job = new Job();
        $job->setExpiresAtValue();

        $this->assertEquals(time() + 86400 * 30, $job->getExpiresAt()->format('U'));
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

Testing the Repository Classes

Now, let’s write some tests for the JobRepository class, to see if the functions we created in the previous days are returning the right values:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsRepository;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class JobRepositoryTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testCountActiveJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c');
        $categories = $query->getResult();

        foreach($categories as $category) {
            $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT COUNT(j.id) FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.category = :category AND j.expires_at > :date');
            $query->setParameter('category', $category->getId());
            $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
            $jobs_db = $query->getSingleScalarResult();

            $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->countActiveJobs($category->getId());
            // This test will verify if the value returned by the countActiveJobs() function
            // coincides with the number of active jobs for a given category from the database
            $this->assertEquals($jobs_rep, $jobs_db);
        }
    }

    public function testGetActiveJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c from IbwJobeetBundle:Category c');
        $categories = $query->getResult();

        foreach ($categories as $category) {
            $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT COUNT(j.id) from IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at > :date AND j.category = :category');
            $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
            $query->setParameter('category', $category->getId());
            $jobs_db = $query->getSingleScalarResult();

            $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), null, null);
            // This test tells if the number of active jobs for a given category from
            // the database is the same as the value returned by the function
            $this->assertEquals($jobs_db, count($jobs_rep));
        }
    }

    public function testGetActiveJob()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at > :date');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);
        $job_db = $query->getSingleResult();

        $job_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJob($job_db->getId());
        // If the job is active, the getActiveJob() method should return a non-null value
        $this->assertNotNull($job_rep);

        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT j FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Job j WHERE j.expires_at < :date');         $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $query->setMaxResults(1);
        $job_expired = $query->getSingleResult();

        $job_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJob($job_expired->getId());
        // If the job is expired, the getActiveJob() method should return a null value
        $this->assertNull($job_rep);
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

We will do the same thing for CategoryRepository class:

namespace IbwJobeetBundleTestsRepository;

use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleTestWebTestCase;
use SymfonyBundleFrameworkBundleConsoleApplication;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleOutputNullOutput;
use SymfonyComponentConsoleInputArrayInput;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandDropDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandCreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand;
use DoctrineBundleDoctrineBundleCommandProxyCreateSchemaDoctrineCommand;

class CategoryRepositoryTest extends WebTestCase
{
    private $em;
    private $application;

    public function setUp()
    {
        static::$kernel = static::createKernel();
        static::$kernel->boot();

        $this->application = new Application(static::$kernel);

        // drop the database
        $command = new DropDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:drop',
            '--force' => true
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // we have to close the connection after dropping the database so we don't get "No database selected" error
        $connection = $this->application->getKernel()->getContainer()->get('doctrine')->getConnection();
        if ($connection->isConnected()) {
            $connection->close();
        }

        // create the database
        $command = new CreateDatabaseDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:database:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // create schema
        $command = new CreateSchemaDoctrineCommand();
        $this->application->add($command);
        $input = new ArrayInput(array(
            'command' => 'doctrine:schema:create',
        ));
        $command->run($input, new NullOutput());

        // get the Entity Manager
        $this->em = static::$kernel->getContainer()
            ->get('doctrine')
            ->getManager();

        // load fixtures
        $client = static::createClient();
        $loader = new SymfonyBridgeDoctrineDataFixturesContainerAwareLoader($client->getContainer());
        $loader->loadFromDirectory(static::$kernel->locateResource('@IbwJobeetBundle/DataFixtures/ORM'));
        $purger = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesPurgerORMPurger($this->em);
        $executor = new DoctrineCommonDataFixturesExecutorORMExecutor($this->em, $purger);
        $executor->execute($loader->getFixtures());
    }

    public function testGetWithJobs()
    {
        $query = $this->em->createQuery('SELECT c FROM IbwJobeetBundle:Category c LEFT JOIN c.jobs j WHERE j.expires_at > :date');
        $query->setParameter('date', date('Y-m-d H:i:s', time()));
        $categories_db = $query->getResult();

        $categories_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Category')->getWithJobs();
        // This test verifies if the number of categories having active jobs, returned
        // by the getWithJobs() function equals the number of categories having active jobs from database
        $this->assertEquals(count($categories_rep), count($categories_db));
    }

    protected function tearDown()
    {
        parent::tearDown();
        $this->em->close();
    }
}

After you finish writing the tests, run them with the following command, in order to generate the code coverage percent for the whole functions :

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Repository/

Now, if you go to http://jobeet.local/cov/Repository.html you will see that the code coverage for Repository Tests is not 100% complete.

Day 8 - coverage not complete

Let’s add some tests for the JobRepository to achieve 100% code coverage. At the moment, in our database, we have two job categories having 0 active jobs and one job category having just one active job. That why, when we will test the $max and $offset parameters, we will run the following tests just on the categories with at least 3 active jobs. In order to do that, add this inside your foreach statement, from your testGetActiveJobs() function:

// ...
foreach ($categories as $category) {
    // ...

    // If there are at least 3 active jobs in the selected category, we will
    // test the getActiveJobs() method using the limit and offset parameters too
    // to get 100% code coverage
    if($jobs_db > 2 ) {
        $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), 2);
        // This test tells if the number of returned active jobs is the one $max parameter requires
        $this->assertEquals(2, count($jobs_rep));

        $jobs_rep = $this->em->getRepository('IbwJobeetBundle:Job')->getActiveJobs($category->getId(), 2, 1);
        // We set the limit to 2 results, starting from the second job and test if the result is as expected
        $this->assertEquals(2, count($jobs_rep));
    }
}
// ...

Run the code coverage command again :

phpunit --coverage-html=web/cov/ -c app src/Ibw/JobeetBundle/Tests/Repository/

This time, if you check your code coverage, you will see that it 100% complete.

Day 8 - coverage complete

That’s all for today! See you tomorrow, when we will talk about functional tests.

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