Introducing SUTA for PHPUnit. 


Background : 

-> We needed something simple to write some Acceptance tests in PHP and couldn't find anything to suit our needs.

-> We are primarily interested in Web application so we decided to opt towards Selenium as the driver for our testing.

-> We are Agile developers and are very found of user stories. We think that a DSL(domain specific language) for testing that is very close to the language of the Product Owner(client) is beneficial in making sure that we are building the right software. 

-> Also, this enables none-programmers(QA experts) to write acceptance test easily against legacy code(untested code)


Acceptance tests Example :

Here is a pretty straightforward user story 

As a User
I want to be able to login
In order to access my account page.

With the following Conditions Of Success:
The page is available only for registered users.
The page is accessible through the /myAccount URL
The Page displays the current invoice total

The syntax for our SUTA test will be something like this :


$context = new SeleniumExecutionContext("firefox","http://www.my-new-killer-app.com");
$bob = new SeleniumDrivenUser($context);

$bob->goesTo(Pages::Login)->andThen()->fills_out(Field::username)->with("bob")->
andThen()->fills_out(Field::password)->with("qwerty")->
andThen()->clicks(Button::login)->andThen()->shouldBeOnPage(Pages::AccountPage);


This type of syntax should hopefully encourage people to write acceptance tests.

Unit Test example 

As far as UnitTesting is concerned, we are trying to approach it with the BDD philosophy.

Using this PHPUnit Add-On, the testing syntax for expectations now looks like this : 

$thomas = new TestSubject(new DummyUser("Thomas"));
$thomas->getName()->shouldEqual("Thomas");

instead of : 

$thomas = new DummyUser("Thomas");
$this->assertEquals( $thomas->getName(),"Thomas");

We think this greatly improves readability. Plus moving the mindset from assertions to expectations, using "should" clearly states that tests should be written firsts.


More to come !