<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Unit Testing Class : CodeIgniter User Guide</title> <style type='text/css' media='all'>@import url('../userguide.css');</style> <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' media='all' href='../userguide.css' /> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/nav.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/prototype.lite.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/moo.fx.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="../nav/user_guide_menu.js"></script> <meta http-equiv='expires' content='-1' /> <meta http-equiv= 'pragma' content='no-cache' /> <meta name='robots' content='all' /> <meta name='author' content='ExpressionEngine Dev Team' /> <meta name='description' content='CodeIgniter User Guide' /> </head> <body> <!-- START NAVIGATION --> <div id="nav"><div id="nav_inner"><script type="text/javascript">create_menu('../');</script></div></div> <div id="nav2"><a name="top"></a><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="myHeight.toggle();"><img src="../images/nav_toggle_darker.jpg" width="154" height="43" border="0" title="Toggle Table of Contents" alt="Toggle Table of Contents" /></a></div> <div id="masthead"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%"> <tr> <td><h1>CodeIgniter User Guide Version 1.7.1</h1></td> <td id="breadcrumb_right"><a href="../toc.html">Table of Contents Page</a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <!-- END NAVIGATION --> <!-- START BREADCRUMB --> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="width:100%"> <tr> <td id="breadcrumb"> <a href="http://codeigniter.com/">CodeIgniter Home</a> › <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> › Unit Testing Class </td> <td id="searchbox"><form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/search"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" id="as_sitesearch" value="codeigniter.com/user_guide/" />Search User Guide <input type="text" class="input" style="width:200px;" name="q" id="q" size="31" maxlength="255" value="" /> <input type="submit" class="submit" name="sa" value="Go" /></form></td> </tr> </table> <!-- END BREADCRUMB --> <br clear="all" /> <!-- START CONTENT --> <div id="content"> <h1>Unit Testing Class</h1> <p>Unit testing is an approach to software development in which tests are written for each function in your application. If you are not familiar with the concept you might do a little googling on the subject.</p> <p>CodeIgniter's Unit Test class is quite simple, consisting of an evaluation function and two result functions. It's not intended to be a full-blown test suite but rather a simple mechanism to evaluate your code to determine if it is producing the correct data type and result. </p> <h2>Initializing the Class</h2> <p>Like most other classes in CodeIgniter, the Unit Test class is initialized in your controller using the <dfn>$this->load->library</dfn> function:</p> <code>$this->load->library('unit_test');</code> <p>Once loaded, the Unit Test object will be available using: <dfn>$this->unit</dfn></p> <h2>Running Tests</h2> <p>Running a test involves supplying a test and an expected result to the following function:</p> <h2>$this->unit->run( <var>test</var>, <var>expected result</var>, '<var>test name</var>' );</h2> <p>Where <var>test</var> is the result of the code you wish to test, <var>expected result</var> is the data type you expect, and <var>test name</var> is an optional name you can give your test. Example:</p> <code>$test = 1 + 1;<br /> <br /> $expected_result = 2;<br /> <br /> $test_name = 'Adds one plus one';<br /> <br /> $this->unit->run($test, $expected_result, $test_name);</code> <p>The expected result you supply can either be a literal match, or a data type match. Here's an example of a literal:</p> <code>$this->unit->run('Foo', 'Foo');</code> <p>Here is an example of a data type match:</p> <code>$this->unit->run('Foo', 'is_string');</code> <p>Notice the use of "is_string" in the second parameter? This tells the function to evaluate whether your test is producing a string as the result. Here is a list of allowed comparison types:</p> <ul> <li>is_string</li> <li>is_bool</li> <li>is_true</li> <li>is_false</li> <li>is_int</li> <li>is_numeric</li> <li>is_float</li> <li>is_double</li> <li>is_array</li> <li>is_null</li> </ul> <h2>Generating Reports</h2> <p>You can either display results after each test, or your can run several tests and generate a report at the end. To show a report directly simply echo or return the <var>run</var> function:</p> <code>echo $this->unit->run($test, $expected_result);</code> <p>To run a full report of all tests, use this:</p> <code>echo $this->unit->report();</code> <p>The report will be formatted in an HTML table for viewing. If you prefer the raw data you can retrieve an array using:</p> <code>echo $this->unit->result();</code> <h2>Strict Mode</h2> <p>By default the unit test class evaluates literal matches loosely. Consider this example:</p> <code>$this->unit->run(1, TRUE);</code> <p>The test is evaluating an integer, but the expected result is a boolean. PHP, however, due to it's loose data-typing will evaluate the above code as TRUE using a normal equality test:</p> <code>if (1 == TRUE) echo 'This evaluates as true';</code> <p>If you prefer, you can put the unit test class in to strict mode, which will compare the data type as well as the value:</p> <code>if (1 === TRUE) echo 'This evaluates as FALSE';</code> <p>To enable strict mode use this:</p> <code>$this->unit->use_strict(TRUE);</code> <h2>Enabling/Disabling Unit Testing</h2> <p>If you would like to leave some testing in place in your scripts, but not have it run unless you need it, you can disable unit testing using:</p> <code>$this->unit->active(FALSE)</code> <h2>Creating a Template</h2> <p>If you would like your test results formatted differently then the default you can set your own template. Here is an example of a simple template. Note the required pseudo-variables:</p> <code> $str = '<br /> <table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1"><br /> <kbd>{rows}</kbd><br /> <tr><br /> <td><kbd>{item}</kbd></td><br /> <td><kbd>{result}</kbd></td><br /> </tr><br /> <kbd>{/rows}</kbd><br /> </table>';<br /> <br /> $this->unit->set_template($str); </code> <p class="important"><strong>Note:</strong> Your template must be declared <strong>before</strong> running the unit test process.</p> </div> <!-- END CONTENT --> <div id="footer"> <p> Previous Topic: <a href="typography.html">Typography Class</a> · <a href="#top">Top of Page</a> · <a href="../index.html">User Guide Home</a> · Next Topic: <a href="uri.html">URI Class</a> </p> <p><a href="http://codeigniter.com">CodeIgniter</a> · Copyright © 2006-2009 · <a href="http://ellislab.com/">Ellislab, Inc.</a></p> </div> </body> </html>