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<h1>Test reporter documentation</h1>
This page...
<ul>
<li>
Displaying <a href="#html">results in HTML</a>
</li>
<li>
Displaying and <a href="#other">reporting results</a>
in other formats
</li>
<li>
Using <a href="#cli">SimpleTest from the command line</a>
</li>
<li>
Using <a href="#xml">Using XML</a> for remote testing
</li>
</ul>
<div class="content">
<p>
SimpleTest pretty much follows the MVC pattern
(Model-View-Controller).
The reporter classes are the view and the model is your
test cases and their hiearchy.
The controller is mostly hidden from the user of
SimpleTest unless you want to change how the test cases
are actually run, in which case it is possible to
override the runner objects from within the test case.
As usual with MVC, the controller is mostly undefined
and there are other places to control the test run.
</p>
<p><a class="target" name="html"><h2>Reporting results in HTML</h2></a></p>
<p>
The default test display is minimal in the extreme.
It reports success and failure with the conventional red and
green bars and shows a breadcrumb trail of test groups
for every failed assertion.
Here's a fail...
<div class="demo">
<h1>File test</h1>
<span class="fail">Fail</span>: createnewfile-&gt;True assertion failed.<br>
<div style="padding: 8px; margin-top: 1em; background-color: red; color: white;">1/1 test cases complete.
<strong>0</strong> passes, <strong>1</strong> fails and <strong>0</strong> exceptions.</div>
</div>
And here all tests passed...
<div class="demo">
<h1>File test</h1>
<div style="padding: 8px; margin-top: 1em; background-color: green; color: white;">1/1 test cases complete.
<strong>1</strong> passes, <strong>0</strong> fails and <strong>0</strong> exceptions.</div>
</div>
The good news is that there are several points in the display
hiearchy for subclassing.
</p>
<p>
For web page based displays there is the
<span class="new_code">HtmlReporter</span> class with the following
signature...
<pre>
class HtmlReporter extends SimpleReporter {
public HtmlReporter($encoding) { ... }
public makeDry(boolean $is_dry) { ... }
public void paintHeader(string $test_name) { ... }
public void sendNoCacheHeaders() { ... }
public void paintFooter(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintGroupStart(string $test_name, integer $size) { ... }
public void paintGroupEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintCaseStart(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintCaseEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintMethodStart(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintMethodEnd(string $test_name) { ... }
public void paintFail(string $message) { ... }
public void paintPass(string $message) { ... }
public void paintError(string $message) { ... }
public void paintException(string $message) { ... }
public void paintMessage(string $message) { ... }
public void paintFormattedMessage(string $message) { ... }
protected string _getCss() { ... }
public array getTestList() { ... }
public integer getPassCount() { ... }
public integer getFailCount() { ... }
public integer getExceptionCount() { ... }
public integer getTestCaseCount() { ... }
public integer getTestCaseProgress() { ... }
}
</pre>
Here is what some of these methods mean. First the display methods
that you will probably want to override...
<ul class="api">
<li>
<span class="new_code">HtmlReporter(string $encoding)</span><br>
is the constructor.
Note that the unit test sets up the link to the display
rather than the other way around.
The display is a mostly passive receiver of test events.
This allows easy adaption of the display for other test
systems beside unit tests, such as monitoring servers.
The encoding is the character encoding you wish to
display the test output in.
In order to correctly render debug output when
using the web tester, this should match the encoding
of the site you are trying to test.
The available character set strings are described in
the PHP <a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php">html_entities()</a>
function.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintHeader(string $test_name)</span><br>
is called once at the very start of the test when the first
start event arrives.
The first start event is usually delivered by the top level group
test and so this is where <span class="new_code">$test_name</span>
comes from.
It paints the page titles, CSS, body tag, etc.
It returns nothing (<span class="new_code">void</span>).
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintFooter(string $test_name)</span><br>
Called at the very end of the test to close any tags opened
by the page header.
By default it also displays the red/green bar and the final
count of results.
Actually the end of the test happens when a test end event
comes in with the same name as the one that started it all
at the same level.
The tests nest you see.
Closing the last test finishes the display.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintMethodStart(string $test_name)</span><br>
is called at the start of each test method.
The name normally comes from method name.
The other test start events behave the same way except
that the group test one tells the reporter how large
it is in number of held test cases.
This is so that the reporter can display a progress bar
as the runner churns through the test cases.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintMethodEnd(string $test_name)</span><br>
backs out of the test started with the same name.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintFail(string $message)</span><br>
paints a failure.
By default it just displays the word fail, a breadcrumbs trail
showing the current test nesting and the message issued by
the assertion.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">void paintPass(string $message)</span><br>
by default does nothing.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">string _getCss()</span><br>
Returns the CSS styles as a string for the page header
method.
Additional styles have to be appended here if you are
not overriding the page header.
You will want to use this method in an overriden page header
if you want to include the original CSS.
</li>
</ul>
There are also some accessors to get information on the current
state of the test suite.
Use these to enrich the display...
<ul class="api">
<li>
<span class="new_code">array getTestList()</span><br>
is the first convenience method for subclasses.
Lists the current nesting of the tests as a list
of test names.
The first, most deeply nested test, is first in the
list and the current test method will be last.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">integer getPassCount()</span><br>
returns the number of passes chalked up so far.
Needed for the display at the end.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">integer getFailCount()</span><br>
is likewise the number of fails so far.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">integer getExceptionCount()</span><br>
is likewise the number of errors so far.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">integer getTestCaseCount()</span><br>
is the total number of test cases in the test run.
This includes the grouping tests themselves.
</li>
<li>
<span class="new_code">integer getTestCaseProgress()</span><br>
is the number of test cases completed so far.
</li>
</ul>
One simple modification is to get the HtmlReporter to display
the passes as well as the failures and errors...
<pre>
<strong>class ShowPasses extends HtmlReporter {
function paintPass($message) {
parent::paintPass($message);
print "&amp;&lt;span class=\"pass\"&gt;Pass&lt;/span&gt;: ";
$breadcrumb = $this-&gt;getTestList();
array_shift($breadcrumb);
print implode("-&amp;gt;", $breadcrumb);
print "-&amp;gt;$message&lt;br /&gt;\n";
}
function _getCss() {
return parent::_getCss() . ' .pass { color: green; }';
}
}</strong>
</pre>
</p>
<p>
One method that was glossed over was the <span class="new_code">makeDry()</span>
method.
If you run this method, with no parameters, on the reporter
before the test suite is run no actual test methods
will be called.
You will still get the events of entering and leaving the
test methods and test cases, but no passes or failures etc,
because the test code will not actually be executed.
</p>
<p>
The reason for this is to allow for more sophistcated
GUI displays that allow the selection of individual test
cases.
In order to build a list of possible tests they need a
report on the test structure for drawing, say a tree view
of the test suite.
With a reporter set to dry run that just sends drawing events
this is easily accomplished.
</p>
<p><a class="target" name="other"><h2>Extending the reporter</h2></a></p>
<p>
Rather than simply modifying the existing display, you might want to
produce a whole new HTML look, or even generate text or XML.
Rather than override every method in
<span class="new_code">HtmlReporter</span> we can take one
step up the class hiearchy to <span class="new_code">SimpleReporter</span>
in the <em>simple_test.php</em> source file.
</p>
<p>
A do nothing display, a blank canvas for your own creation, would
be...
<pre>
<strong>require_once('simpletest/simple_test.php');</strong>
class MyDisplay extends SimpleReporter {<strong>
</strong>
function paintHeader($test_name) {
}
function paintFooter($test_name) {
}
function paintStart($test_name, $size) {<strong>
parent::paintStart($test_name, $size);</strong>
}
function paintEnd($test_name, $size) {<strong>
parent::paintEnd($test_name, $size);</strong>
}
function paintPass($message) {<strong>
parent::paintPass($message);</strong>
}
function paintFail($message) {<strong>
parent::paintFail($message);</strong>
}
}
</pre>
No output would come from this class until you add it.
</p>
<p><a class="target" name="cli"><h2>The command line reporter</h2></a></p>
<p>
SimpleTest also ships with a minimal command line reporter.
The interface mimics JUnit to some extent, but paints the
failure messages as they arrive.
To use the command line reporter simply substitute it
for the HTML version...
<pre>
&lt;?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
$test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
$test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
$test-&gt;run(<strong>new TextReporter()</strong>);
?&gt;
</pre>
Then invoke the test suite from the command line...
<pre class="shell">
php file_test.php
</pre>
You will need the command line version of PHP installed
of course.
A passing test suite looks like this...
<pre class="shell">
File test
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0
</pre>
A failure triggers a display like this...
<pre class="shell">
File test
1) True assertion failed.
in createnewfile
FAILURES!!!
Test cases run: 1/1, Failures: 1, Exceptions: 0
</pre>
</p>
<p>
One of the main reasons for using a command line driven
test suite is of using the tester as part of some automated
process.
To function properly in shell scripts the test script should
return a non-zero exit code on failure.
If a test suite fails the value <span class="new_code">false</span>
is returned from the <span class="new_code">SimpleTest::run()</span>
method.
We can use that result to exit the script with the desired return
code...
<pre>
&lt;?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
$test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
$test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
<strong>exit ($test-&gt;run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);</strong>
?&gt;
</pre>
Of course we don't really want to create two test scripts,
a command line one and a web browser one, for each test suite.
The command line reporter includes a method to sniff out the
run time environment...
<pre>
&lt;?php
require_once('simpletest/unit_tester.php');
require_once('simpletest/reporter.php');
$test = &amp;new TestSuite('File test');
$test-&gt;addTestFile('tests/file_test.php');
<strong>if (TextReporter::inCli()) {</strong>
exit ($test-&gt;run(new TextReporter()) ? 0 : 1);
<strong>}</strong>
$test-&gt;run(new HtmlReporter());
?&gt;
</pre>
This is the form used within SimpleTest itself.
</p>
<p><a class="target" name="xml"><h2>Remote testing</h2></a></p>
<p>
SimpleTest ships with an <span class="new_code">XmlReporter</span> class
used for internal communication.
When run the output looks like...
<pre class="shell">
&lt;?xml version="1.0"?&gt;
&lt;run&gt;
&lt;group size="4"&gt;
&lt;name&gt;Remote tests&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;group size="4"&gt;
&lt;name&gt;Visual test with 48 passes, 48 fails and 4 exceptions&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;case&gt;
&lt;name&gt;testofunittestcaseoutput&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;test&gt;
&lt;name&gt;testofresults&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;pass&gt;This assertion passed&lt;/pass&gt;
&lt;fail&gt;This assertion failed&lt;/fail&gt;
&lt;/test&gt;
&lt;test&gt;
...
&lt;/test&gt;
&lt;/case&gt;
&lt;/group&gt;
&lt;/group&gt;
&lt;/run&gt;
</pre>
You can make use of this format with the parser
supplied as part of SimpleTest itself.
This is called <span class="new_code">SimpleTestXmlParser</span> and
resides in <em>xml.php</em> within the SimpleTest package...
<pre>
&lt;?php
require_once('simpletest/xml.php');
...
$parser = &amp;new SimpleTestXmlParser(new HtmlReporter());
$parser-&gt;parse($test_output);
?&gt;
</pre>
The <span class="new_code">$test_output</span> should be the XML format
from the XML reporter, and could come from say a command
line run of a test case.
The parser sends events to the reporter just like any
other test run.
There are some odd occasions where this is actually useful.
</p>
<p>
A problem with large test suites is thet they can exhaust
the default 8Mb memory limit on a PHP process.
By having the test groups output in XML and run in
separate processes, the output can be reparsed to
aggregate the results into a much smaller footprint top level
test.
</p>
<p>
Because the XML output can come from anywhere, this opens
up the possibility of aggregating test runs from remote
servers.
A test case already exists to do this within the SimpleTest
framework, but it is currently experimental...
<pre>
&lt;?php
<strong>require_once('../remote.php');</strong>
require_once('../reporter.php');
$test_url = ...;
$dry_url = ...;
$test = &amp;new TestSuite('Remote tests');
$test-&gt;addTestCase(<strong>new RemoteTestCase($test_url, $dry_url)</strong>);
$test-&gt;run(new HtmlReporter());
?&gt;
</pre>
The <span class="new_code">RemoteTestCase</span> takes the actual location
of the test runner, basically a web page in XML format.
It also takes the URL of a reporter set to do a dry run.
This is so that progress can be reported upward correctly.
The <span class="new_code">RemoteTestCase</span> can be added to test suites
just like any other group test.
</p>
</div>
References and related information...
<ul>
<li>
SimpleTest project page on <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpletest/">SourceForge</a>.
</li>
<li>
SimpleTest download page on <a href="http://www.lastcraft.com/simple_test.php">LastCraft</a>.
</li>
<li>
The <a href="http://simpletest.org/api/">developer's API for SimpleTest</a>
gives full detail on the classes and assertions available.
</li>
</ul>
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