any good open source/commercial PHP testing tools available??
I don't know exactly what do you want to test but here are some tools which help during development:
PHPUnit for unit tests
CodeSniffer for coding standards
PHP Mess Detector for code quality
For testing a web application within your web browser automatically try Selenium.
I can also recommend FirePHP with will enable you to debug your code using the Firebug plugin for Firefox.
A list of PHP Performance Test Tools in this link http://scriptime.blogspot.in/2014/07/performance-test-tools.html
Check out PHPUnit:
http://www.phpunit.de/
One especially handy tool to debug is xdebug. Install through PECL. Integrated with your IDE you'll be able to interactively step through code. Without the IDE and it'll prettify your errors and help you test them.
For automatically testing the app itself, Selenium seems to be the best choice. Note that I don't use it, but it will automatically simulate going to a page, filling in data on a form, etc. It's basically a way to automate users' activity in a browser.
The other suggestions are all apt as well.
To test the code you should write unit tests. This requires two tools, what you need is a debugger (xdebug or zend debugger) and phpunit. They can be written in any editor. If you haven't done this before here is an intro article.
http://devzone.zend.com/article/2772
To test the output of the code (HTML,CSS,JS) you should use a different tool. A GUI testing tool is what you use for this job. Here is a list of these tools. Selenium and Selenium based tools is probably the way to go, but the best decision depends on the company and lack thereof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GUI_testing_tools
Do you mean a site where you can run PHP code in order to test it? Like localhost?
OK, I'll give you an answer without the smarm :-).
Here, get started with XAMPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html. I don't know of any in-browser PHP testing methods, and I can (off the top of my head) think of several ways that a good coder might exploit a site that uses eval() to run user-submitted code. They'd basically be giving anybody free range to run code on their server. But look...get started on XAMPP and there you can start testing PHP scripts without even needing an internet connection. Also if you're interested in a good PHP beginner's guide, see here:
http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp
Not sure if this is for debugging or for testing but i found WAMP to be a good alternative to XAMP. Thats what i use for testing
Related
I am starting a website, thus I'm learning how to program in html/css/php. For other languages I have learnt so far, there has always been an IDE or interactive console that I can type in codes directly to see how they works, access variable types etc., which makes learning and debugging a breeze. (E.g. bash, python, matlab, perl, tcl...)
Can I do the same for html and php? In the spirit stackoverflow's questions style, lemme try to make the questions a little more specific.
I know I can use php interactively on a terminal.
But that is insufficient if I want to see how it works in a html script.
Is there a browser/IDE with a console where I can input commands interactively and see the results?
For PHP:
I'd suggest to use Xdebug.
Read through this article: Debugging techniques for PHP programmers.
Note about debugging production.
For your markup:
Read Firebug-like debugger for Google Chrome.
Also, you might try Web Developer extension.
I find enabling errors is handy for general debugging. With it enabled you can see where the script failed and hone in on the error quite easily. For more advanced stuff Xdebug has it's place.
Combined with a local WAMP installation you have a great start point. Save the php script, execute it and combined with "Firebug" (FF extension) and you have a decent "beginners" tool set for debugging.
you can make your browser your ide. i do, check it out:
handy article showing how to output php to browser console. http://sarfraznawaz.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/outputting-php-to-browser-console/
as for html, download web developer extension for your browser, and validate your markup to test/debug.
You might be interested in something like Cloud9 IDE.
Check them out at: www.cloud9ide.com
I'm starting a new project, for this project, I need a great IDE, which allows me to debug. I thought to aptana after some search.
But this project is a little specific, it has to work with a specific version of php and has not common extension(e.g. php_ingres), so I think I cannot use the internal server of aptana, otherwise it will not find every ingres function.
I've an EasyPhp environnement installed and working.
I've created a new "Simple server" and a new web browser configuration using this webserver(and chrome). But now when I try to debug it, I cannot see my browser configuration, it looks like it display only internal servers here. So is this possible to use aptana with easyphp? If yes, how?
If not, which IDE provide some auto-completion, debugging and allows me to use my own server?
Thank you very much
I think Netbeans can do your job, check this guide :
http://wiki.netbeans.org/HowToConfigureXDebug
Netbeans is great and is free too. But it maybe hard to figure your way around in that for a 1st time user. If money ain't a problem i'd suggest using phpDesigner 7 - http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php. Easy and simple, with word completion, debugging features and also allows you to setup up an FTP connection to your servers so you can edit your files on the fly.(This method of editing files on the fly however may not be ideal if its mission critical data. I'd suggest using version control platforms like git, read more here - http://progit.org/book/ch1-1.html )
I finally used code lobster, which is not the best editor but can use easyPhp and actually debug into it.
Is there a simple "Web interface" to running PHPUnit test suites? i.e. a PHP script that runs the test on the command line, and outputs a nicely formatted HTML result.
I develop web applications, and the day-to-day workflow usually switches between the IDE and the browser. I would like to have the unit testing in the same environment.
I'm looking for something really simple and PHP based - I am planning to get into phpUnderControl (which has the functionality I'm looking for) but not yet.
I recently discovered Visual PHPUnit which looks like a very very nice interface for everyone that doesn't want to run PHPUnit from the command line:
It seems to be the next iteration of #Matt's PHPUnit Test Report
I feel your frustration - I'm a UI guy myself. Looking at the terminal too long makes my head spin. I wrote a quick little application that you might find helpful.
(source: mattmueller.me)
You can find it here: http://mattmueller.me/blog/introducing-phpunit-test-report
Cheers!
Matt
After several hours of researching recently, the best PHPUnit web frontend I have come across was https://github.com/NSinopoli/VisualPHPUnit
You can use phing to run a PHPUnitTask and then convert the output with:
PHPUnitReport - This task transforms PHPUnit xml reports to HTML using XSLT.
Example:
<phpunitreport infile="reports/testsuites.xml"
format="frames"
todir="reports/tests"
styledir="/home/phing/etc"/>
See phpunit --help for the various output formats.
The 2.3 version of PHPUnit had a chapter on this, but it is gone for some time now. You might be able to find an old copy with Google somewhere.
Since you mention this is for phpUnderControl: if you are not fixed on that, consider using Jenkins and http://jenkins-php.org.
On a side note: unless we are talking CI servers, most people I know don't use PHPUnit through a web interface. They either just use the command line or their IDE integration.
You can use Jenkins to run any kind of tasks including PHPUnit tests. It can automatically checkout your app, run the tests, build a HTML report and even email you if the build fails.
Here's the templates you need to setup Jenkins to build a bunch of interesting reports and stats from your project.
If you don't care about reformatting the output and just want to run PHPUnit from a web page, you can do so with some PHP code like this:
<pre>
<?php
$argv[0] = "phpunit.phar";
$argv[1] = '--bootstrap';
$argv[2] = 'src/load.php';
$argv[3] = "tests/MoneyTest";
$_SERVER['argv'] = $argv;
include 'phpunit.phar';
?>
</pre>
The file src/load.php is just a bunch of includes to include the classes. The output then looks like this:
#!/usr/bin/env php
PHPUnit 4.1.2 by Sebastian Bergmann.
........................
Time: 122 ms, Memory: 3.25Mb
OK (24 tests, 43 assertions)
Just ignore that first line and you can see the results.
I'm shocked that PHPUnit does not include a basic way to do this. Some classes may be dependent on the web server. Do we just not test those? Some sites have you upload your files and don't allow command line executions.
I've never seen such a web-interface... But, as you say you are always using your IDE and your webbrowser, why not think the other way ?
i.e. a possible solution would be to launch the unittests from your IDE ;-)
Which means you should be able to click on the failing tests to "jump" to either the test method, or the reason that caused the test to fail, for instance.
In the PHP + PHPUnit world, I know that Zend Studio does that -- yes, it's not free, unfortunatly ;-(
Using Eclipse PDT, a solution would be to register PHPUnit as an external tool (see or instance this blogpost : Using PHPUnit with Eclipse PDT) -- but it's quite not sexy, and you cannot click on the results to jump the the methods/tests...
Another solution would be to develop a plugin to integrate PHPUnit into Eclipse PDT (like it's been done for Zend Studio, I suppose) -- A phpunit4eclipse was created some time ago, but it's just a start, and didn't get much succes, so the author didn't work on it after releasing that...
I found this:
I stumbeld upon a post from Parth Patil, whose solution was to create an xml-report from PHPUnit and then use this xml to create your own report.
I used his solution, made it PHPUnit 3.4 compatible and also added some Reflection to see my testcase doc-comments in the report. (Note: For the refelection i use the Zend_Framework reflection class)
Ok you said you'd prefer an independent IDE solution, but just so you know there is a recent plugin that enables executing PHPUnit simply into Eclipse, and having a nice representation (like in Zend Studio, but for free).
Here is the link, the main developper replies fast to emails too if you have a problem :
http://www.phpsrc.org/wiki/
I personnaly tested some web interface, but I have always been deceived (not really practital and stable). But this is your choice.
jframework also has a nice UI for PHPUnit. It breaks the results, and shows test coverage on all files and each file separately.
It works on both web and cli, with the cli one having the benefit of dumping every test after its done (the web-based one has to wait until everything is over).
You can always use the Maven for PHP from which you can use the surefire reports (mvn site).
More info here: http://www.php-maven.org
I'm a self-taught noobie, trying to debug PHP on my GoDaddy hosted server. Is this idea even rational, or do I need to continue to do all development locally and just continuously re-ftp upload the changes?
Is there some way that I can use eclipse to step through, and debug my php scripts that are hosted on a third party site?
Although I have only used Netbeans and XDebug for remote debugging, it should be possible to use Eclipse PDT and XDebug. See:
setting-eclipse-pdt-and-xdebug
Debugging PHP applications with xdebug
One caveat, however. To configure xdebug you will need to modify some settings in php.ini - I am not sure if this will be possible on a hosted server. If not, you would need to have a local server that you use for debugging, and would need to figure out another solution for your "production" environment. Which may not be a bad idea, actually, as it would give you a good place to test your changes without risking breaking anything on your actual site.
Also, I recommend that you look into Netbeans, if for no other reason than to experiment and see what it can do compared to Eclipse. One nice feature is that you can set it up to automatically ftp (or scp) changed files to the remote site. So you can make some code changes, click the debug button, and after waiting a moment for your files to upload you can be stepping through code on the remote site.
While there is definitely a case for remote debugging you should always be working locally and then uploading. Anything except the most minor of changes should be done locally tested then pushed to a server - sometimes production directly, sometimes a testing server...
Yes Eclipse supports remote debugging with Xdebug as well as the one from Zend Debugger check out Justin's links as well as This one for Zend Debugger. I think Zend has an all in one with pdt+deps and Zend Debugger - ofcourse you still need to set up the extension on the server (note link is for setup on windows but hte process should be similar).
Obligatory "Ewww GoDaddy" :-)
If the web server have XDebug installed, then you can do debugging with it. Searching for it in google yield a quite num of articles on how to do it.
Personally, I'm using CodeIgniter. I do debugging using FirePHP and PQP. Make a habit to write a good indented code. You might find your code have less bug, both syntax and logic, and easier to maintained in the future. Use a consistent white space, either tab or space. Use a consistent bracket style. It will save you from the headache when re-read it for bug or adding more feature later.
I have never needed to do a step by step debug in PHP, but when I do need to debug I just output strings of the variables at that point.
However, one thing that I found, but again never used, was FirePHP:
http://www.firephp.org/
As far as I'm aware, this is not possible in Eclipse, it is, however, possible in NetBeans, but as Nathan stated, I've never really needed to remote debug any of my PHP scripts.
I'm looking for clean way to break my current habit of using print commands in PHP when I want to see what's happening.
I am aware of options such as Zend Debugger but I use Coda for development and I'm not interested in mixing other software or having to do server commands. I just need a console that can be added to my codebase and then turned on/off.
Does anything like this exist? Furthermore, what do you use and why?
EDIT: There was a lot of stuff out there but I needed something even simpler so I ended up coding it myself. It didn't take long (nor is it very pretty) but I've put it up on my server for anyone else interested.
There is very good extension for Google Chrome - PHP Console.
You can use Xdebug in combination with any one of the many options available to view its debugging info.
There's FirePHP which will write your PHP log messages to the Firebug console.
I am aware of options such as Zend Debugger but I use Coda for development and I'm not interested in mixing other software or having to do server commands. I just need a console that can be added to my codebase and then turned on/off.
Not entirely sure if I understand you there, but couldn't you log to a file and then have a console window running with tail -f /path/to/log-file.txt? That works pretty well for me. Of course, you do need a console connection to the server for this.
Using Coda? That means you are using a mac. You probably want to look at XDebug and http://www.bluestatic.org/software/macgdbp/
There is another extension for Chrome available called ChromePHP. It's a little simpler than some of the other solutions:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/noaneddfkdjfnfdakjjmocngnfkfehhd
Getting started guide available at:
http://www.chromephp.com
During my development career i have not stumbled upon a software that displays the output you describe in your question. It would be a wonderful program or feature i believe but sadly i have not found any.
Like Andrew and nickf have answered, there are some good tools out there and until someone sits down and writes this, it looks like we are out in the cold.
I was looking for similar solution which wasn't heavy and even better I didn't need to include any classes, so I created simple function that outputs php to browser console, you can check it here:
Outputting PHP To Browser Console