Chapter 17. PHPUnit and Selenium

Selenium RC

Selenium RC is a test tool that allows you to write automated user-interface tests for web applications in any programming language against any HTTP website using any mainstream browser. It uses Selenium Core, a library that performs automated browser tasks using JavaScript. Selenium tests run directly in a browser, just as real users do. These tests can be used for both acceptance testing (by performing higher-level tests on the integrated system instead of just testing each unit of the system independently) and browser compatibility testing (by testing the web application on different operating systems and browsers).

Let us take a look at how Selenium RC is installed:

Download a distribution archive of Selenium RC.
Unzip the distribution archive and copy server/selenium-server.jar to /usr/local/bin, for instance.
Start the Selenium RC server by running java -jar /usr/local/bin/selenium-server.jar.

Now we can send commands to the Selenium RC server using its client/server protocol.

PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase

The PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase test case extension implements the client/server protocol to talk to Selenium RC as well as specialized assertion methods for web testing.

Example 17.1 shows how to test the contents of the <title> element of the http://www.example.com/ website.

Example 17.1: Usage example for PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase

<?php
require_once 'PHPUnit/Extensions/SeleniumTestCase.php';
 
class WebTest extends PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase
{
    protected function setUp()
    {
        $this->setBrowser('*firefox');
        $this->setBrowserUrl('http://www.example.com/');
    }
 
    public function testTitle()
    {
        $this->open('http://www.example.com/');
        $this->assertTitleEquals('Example Web Page');
    }
}
?>

Unlike with the PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase class, test case classes that extend PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase have to provide a setUp() method. This method is used to configure the Selenium RC session. See Table 17.1 for the list of methods that are available for this.

Table 17.1. Selenium RC API: Setup

Method	Meaning
`void setBrowser(string $browser)`	Set the browser to be used by the Selenium RC server.
`void setBrowserUrl(string $browserUrl)`	Set the base URL for the tests.
`void setHost(string $host)`	Set the hostname for the connection to the Selenium RC server.
`void setPort(int $port)`	Set the port for the connection to the Selenium RC server.
`void setTimeout(int $timeout)`	Set the timeout for the connection to the Selenium RC server.
`void setSleep(int $seconds)`	Set the number of seconds the Selenium RC client should sleep between sending action commands to the Selenium RC server.

Table 17.2 lists the various assertion methods that PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase provides.

Table 17.2. Assertions

Assertion	Meaning
`void assertAlertPresent()`	Reports an error if no alert is present.
`void assertNoAlertPresent()`	Reports an error if an alert is present.
`void assertChecked(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is not checked.
`void assertNotChecked(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is checked.
`void assertConfirmationPresent()`	Reports an error if no confirmation is present.
`void assertNoConfirmationPresent()`	Reports an error if a confirmation is present.
`void assertEditable(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is not editable.
`void assertNotEditable(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is editable.
`void assertElementValueEquals(string $locator, string $text)`	Reports an error if the value of the element identified by `$locator` is not equal to the given `$text`.
`void assertElementValueNotEquals(string $locator, string $text)`	Reports an error if the value of the element identified by `$locator` is equal to the given `$text`.
`void assertElementContainsText(string $locator, string $text)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` does not contain the given `$text`.
`void assertElementNotContainsText(string $locator, string $text)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` contains the given `$text`.
`void assertElementPresent(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is not present.
`void assertElementNotPresent(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is present.
`void assertLocationEquals(string $location)`	Reports an error if the current location is not equal to the given `$location`.
`void assertLocationNotEquals(string $location)`	Reports an error if the current location is equal to the given `$location`.
`void assertPromptPresent()`	Reports an error if no prompt is present.
`void assertNoPromptPresent()`	Reports an error if a prompt is present.
`void assertIsSelected(string $selectLocator, string $value)`	Reports an error if the given value is not selected.
`void assertIsNotSelected(string $selectLocator, string $value)`	Reports an error if the given value is selected.
`void assertSomethingSelected(string $selectLocator)`	Reports an error if the option identified by `$selectLocator` is not selected.
`void assertNothingSelected(string $selectLocator)`	Reports an error if the option identified by `$selectLocator` is selected.
`void assertTextPresent(string $pattern)`	Reports an error if the given `$pattern` is not present.
`void assertTextNotPresent(string $pattern)`	Reports an error if the given `$pattern` is present.
`void assertTitleEquals(string $title)`	Reports an error if the current title is not equal to the given `$title`.
`void assertTitleNotEquals(string $title)`	Reports an error if the current title is equal to the given `$title`.
`void assertVisible(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is not visible.
`void assertNotVisible(string $locator)`	Reports an error if the element identified by `$locator` is visible.

Table 17.3 shows the two template methods of PHPUnit_Extensions_SeleniumTestCase:

Table 17.3. Template Methods

Method	Meaning
`void defaultAssertions()`	Override to perform assertions that are shared by all tests of a test case. This method is called after each command that is sent to the Selenium RC server.
`void sharedAssertions()`	Override to perform assertions that are shared by all tests of a test case. This method is called before the execution of a test ends.