The Grumpy Programmer's Guide To Testing PHP Applications
The Grumpy Programmer's Guide To Testing PHP Applications
16 years of testing advice to help you learn to test your PHP code no matter what framework you use
About the Book
I’ve been trying to help people test their PHP code for a very long time, probably before some of you reading this even got started in programming. PHPUnit didn’t exist, the most commonly-used version of PHP was 5.0, and social media wasn’t a thing. GMail had just started being used. My first search engine was Altavista. Yes, I learned to test uphill, both ways, in the snow.
I feel that testing, as a concept, is hard to explain to beginning programmers: “we are going to write code that is going to make sure your other code works as expected”. The assumption that underlies all this is that you already understand how to write computer programs in your chosen language! This makes it very difficult to teach to beginner or inexperienced programmers. When you combine this with how PHP does not force any particular structure on you, you have an environment where only the folks who are really motivated end up learning about testing.
The Grumpy Programmer's Guide To Testing PHP Applications is my way to try and provide some help for developers who are looking to become more test-centric and reap the benefits of automated testing and related tooling like static analysis and automation. I believe that by learning the skills (both technical and core) surrounding testing you will be able to write tests using almost any testing framework and almost any PHP application.
The book combines all the material from my previous books, adds new material, and revisits some old topics where my experiences have changed my thoughts. I break the vast topic of testing into smaller chunks, along with providing lots of examples and explanations of how I approach testing applications. Some of the things I cover are:
- Test-Driven development
- Strategies for Test-After practices
- Test refactoring strategies
- How PHPUnit itself works
- Complementary tools and approaches like static analysis and mutation testing
- Learning the core skills you need to get other people testing their code
The Grumpy Programmer's Guide To Testing PHP Applications is designed to be the book you refer to over and over again to not only learn how to test your PHP applications but to also remind yourself about techniques and tools that lead to successful outcomes. All I've ever wanted to do is get more people testing their code so we can concentrate on solving problems instead of constantly fixing bugs that we might've caught earlier.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
-
Changing How We Think About Tests
-
- It’s A Funnel, Not A Pyramid.
- Customer Tests and Developer Tests
-
-
What Are Tests?
-
- Prerequisites
- Manual Tests
- Semi-Automated Tests Using Real Dependencies
- Semi-Automated Tests Using Test Doubles
- Automated Tests
- Final Thoughts
-
-
How PHPUnit Works
-
- High-Level Overview
- How Do We Install PHPUnit?
- The PHPUnit Test Runner
- PHPUnit Test Cases
-
-
Test Double
-
- What Is a Test Double?
- Dummies
- Test Stub
- Mock Objects and Test Spies
- Fakes
- Final Thoughts
-
-
Test-Driven Development by Example
-
- Tooling
- Getting Started
- First Test
- Next Test
- Building Further Test Cases
- Refactoring The Tests
- Handling Non-Valid Input
- Final Thoughts
-
-
Test-After Development by Example
-
- What’s the Difference?
- What Is the Expected Behavior?
- How Am I Going to Test This?
-
- Refactoring Helpers
-
Testing APIs
-
- Response Validation
- API Schema Validation
-
-
Data Providers
-
- Why You Should Use Data Providers
- Look at All Those Tests
- Creating Data Providers
- More Complex Examples
- Data Provider Tricks
- Final Thoughts
-
-
Wrappers
-
- Wrappers From Up High
-
-
Metatesting
-
- Mature Testing Tools Are Available
- Open Source Drives Acceptance
- Proof Exists to Back the Promises
- Testing Moves Bug Fixing to a Cheaper Part of the Cycle
- Well-Documented Build Systems Encourage Continuous Deployment
- There Are Awesome Complementary Tools
-
-
Building a Testing Culture
-
- Primary Goal
- Tests as First Class Components
- Tests for Bugs
- Tests for New Features
- Tests for Refactoring
- Commitment to Peer Review
- Consistency in Development Environments
- Automation Is Your Friend
- Same Languages and Tools
- Same Practices
- Trust
-
-
Bootstrapping
-
- Test Environment Bootstrapping
- Auto-Wiring Bootstrapping
-
-
No Tests? No Problem!
-
- How Did We End Up Without Any Tests?
- Bug Fixes Need Proof
- New Features Require Proof
- Test Suites Are Not Bulletproof
-
-
Nobody Is Running the Tests!
-
- Time Pressure
- Tests Are Too Slow
- Monolithic Bootstrapping
- Shared Testing Environments
- Testing Is Part of the Job
- Lost Opportunity Costs
-
-
It’s About People
-
- Like Kids on a Playground
- Lack of Good Docs
- Convincing People About Time
- Cowboys Above Me
-
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,600,486writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
Cronache di Domain-Driven Design
Francesco Strazzullo, Matteo Baglini, Gianluca Padovani, Emanuele DelBono, Marco Consolaro, Alessandro Colla, Uberto Barbini, Alberto Acerbis, Julie Camosseto, DDD Open, and Alberto BrandoliniCronache di Domain-Driven Design: un libro corale in italiano fatto di storie indipendenti tra loro, che sono il risultato dell’applicazione di Domain-Driven Design su progetti reali.
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
Jetpack Compose internals
Jorge CastilloJetpack Compose is the future of Android UI. Master how it works internally and become a more efficient developer with it. You'll also find it valuable if you are not an Android dev. This book provides all the details to understand how the Compose compiler & runtime work, and how to create a client library using them.
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
Functional event-driven architecture: Powered by Scala 3
Gabriel VolpeExplore the event-driven architecture (EDA) in a purely functional way, mainly powered by Fs2 streams in Scala 3!
Leverage your functional programming skills by designing and writing stateless microservices that scale, powered by stateful message brokers.
Mastering STM32 - Second Edition
Carmine NovielloWith more than 1200 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the first guide around that introduces the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL and STM32CubeIDE development environment.
CCIE Service Provider Version 4 Written and Lab Exam Comprehensive Guide
Nicholas RussoThe service provider landscape has changed rapidly over the past several years. Networking vendors are continuing to propose new standards, techniques, and procedures for overcoming new challenges while concurrently reducing costs and delivering new services. Cisco has recently updated the CCIE Service Provider track to reflect these changes; this book represents the author's personal journey in achieving that certification.
CCIE SP v5.0
Łukasz Bromirski, Piotr Jablonski, and Nicholas RussoAre you striving to prepare to and pass CCIE SP lab exam? Take the opportunity and get this workbook! With the attached initial cfg files you will prepare yourself for the CCIE SP exam as well as learn SP technologies applicable to all kinds of today modern networks! This workbook covers blueprint topics and provides challenging examples.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
Practical FP in Scala + Functional event-driven architecture
2 Books
Practical FP in Scala (A hands-on approach) & Functional event-driven architecture, aka FEDA, (Powered by Scala 3), together as a bundle! The content of PFP in Scala is a requirement to understand FEDA so why not take advantage of this bundle!? - #3
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #4
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #6
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #7
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #9
Retromat eBook Bundle for Agile Retrospectives
2 Books
If you facilitate retrospectives this bundle is for you: "Plans for Retrospectives" helps beginners learn the lay of the land with tried-and-true plans. Once you know your way around, "Run great agile retrospectives" contains all 135+ activities in Retromat for you to mix and match.