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Effective Testing for PHP Applications

David Chang
November 01, 2017

Effective Testing for PHP Applications

When it comes to testing, there's a long list of different types (there's unit, functional, integration, performance, usability and acceptance testing to name a few!). In this talk, David Chang from Chefs Plate will cover several of the common types of testing, what the popular PHP testing tools are, and what they can be used for. This talk will also discuss practical starting points for unit testing and testing coverage, how to ensure you focus your testing on the right components, making tests scalable and quick, and will briefly touch on how continuous integration fits into the larger picture.

David Chang

November 01, 2017
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  1. Chefs Plate • We're hiring! ◦ Front-End Developer (x2) ◦

    Data Engineer ◦ Product Owner - Mobile ◦ IT Manager ◦ IT Administrator ◦ Plus many more! Check out https://www.chefsplate.com/careers
  2. “ Software and cathedrals are much the same: first we

    build them, then we pray. - Anonymous
  3. =

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  5. ON THE MENU Agenda: ◦ Why is Testing Important? ✔

    ◦ Types of Testing ◦ PHP Testing Tools ◦ Testing guidelines ◦ Integrating with CI ◦ CI Action Plan
  6. IT'S EASY TO GET LOST Unit Testing Integration Testing Systems

    Testing Acceptance Testing Functional Testing Usability Testing Stress/Load Testing Security Testing Smoke Testing Regression Testing Accessibility Testing Automated Testing White-box Testing Black-box Testing API Testing Static Testing Dynamic Testing Code Coverage Non-Functional Testing Model-Based Testing Exploratory Testing Ad Hoc Testing Visual Testing Grey-box Testing GUI Testing Sanity Testing
  7. ◦ Tests the smallest testable part of the code, usually

    individual functions ◦ Usually tested in isolation, with the help of method stubs, mocks and test harnesses ◦ Objective: isolate a unit of code and validate its correctness. UNIT TESTING
  8. UNIT TESTING: PROS AND CONS Cons: ◦ Setting up realistic

    or practical test cases not always easy ◦ Like documentation, difficult to constantly maintain for accuracy Pros: ◦ Early detection of problems ◦ Allows developers to think through various conditions, providing more structure and improving code design ◦ Great help during refactors
  9. ◦ Larger tests are grouped into modules and those are

    tested as a group ◦ Objective: reveal issues between integrated components of a system ◦ Can help identify gaps that were not caught in unit testing ◦ Commonly referred to as functional or framework tests INTEGRATION TESTING
  10. ◦ Was the postal code validated when it was submitted?

    ◦ Did we return the appropriate error if it was invalid? EXAMPLE OF AN INTEGRATION TEST
  11. ◦ End-to-end testing of a particular feature ◦ Objective: ensure

    your feature/application is ready for production SYSTEMS TESTING
  12. Examples: ◦ When submitting the customer email, was the email

    persisted correctly in the database or the email service provider? ◦ Was the customer added to the correct mailing list? ◦ Did we protect against spammers? Did we introduce any vulnerabilities or performance issues? SYSTEMS TESTING
  13. ◦ Performed by product owner/client ◦ Objective: confirm that requirements

    for project were met ◦ Example: ▫ Marketing team to confirm the email was correctly added to the right mailing list ▫ They might also confirm that the email has the correct fields embedded (USER) ACCEPTANCE TESTING
  14. TDD vs BDD ◦ TDD: Test-Driven Development ◦ BDD: Behaviour-Driven

    Development ◦ Both write unit tests before coding. Main difference: ◦ TDD (e.g. PhpUnit) uses PHP code for tests ◦ BDD (e.g. Behat) uses human-readable sentences
  15. What's wrong with PhpUnit? Nothing really. It can be used

    to test anything. However, because it is so generalized, more specialized tools can help to enforce good coding practices. WHAT ABOUT PHPUNIT?
  16. ◦ Multi-purpose: can handle unit, functional, API & acceptance tests

    ◦ Superset of PhpUnit ◦ Write test code in PHP
  17. ◦ BDD tool that allows business people to write software

    rules without being a developer ◦ Behat is the PHP implementation of Ruby's Cucumber ◦ Uses Gherkin syntax instead of PHP; can take longer to onboard for PHP developers
  18. “ PhpSpec, which I maintain, is a tool for designing

    classes that work well. It's best used to drive the design of a clean, decoupled, isolated domain model without getting too involved in infrastructure. - Ciaran McNulty
  19. 3 TYPES OF CODE COVERAGE Once you have Xdebug installed,

    you can use PhpUnit to determine code coverage: ◦ Line coverage ◦ Function/method coverage ◦ Class/trait coverage ◦ Branch coverage ◦ Path coverage ◦ Change Risk Anti-Patterns (CRAP) Index
  20. “ No amount of testing can prove a software right,

    a single test can prove a software wrong. - Amir Ghahrai, testingexcellence.com
  21. SOME BAD THINGS TO TEST ◦ Testing a built-in library

    function (E.g. Math.round or array_unshift) ◦ Testing that when a button is clicked, that the button was clicked ◦ Individual getters and setters
  22. WHAT NEEDS TO BE TESTED? Some ideas: ◦ Start with

    the risky and complex elements first ◦ Test components that are commonly used ◦ Testing assumptions about evolving APIs
  23. ◦ Middleware & router ◦ Authorization/authentication ◦ Error handling (how

    our API handles thrown exceptions) ◦ Payment & email, etc. ◦ Data layer & graceful degradation ◦ Localizations ◦ Expected response formats WHAT ARE HIGH IMPACT AREAS?
  24. HOW TO MAKE TESTS SCALABLE? When you have many tests

    or they are taking a long time: ◦ De-couple from database ◦ Mock expensive or difficult to reproduce calls (esp. third party) ◦ Run tests in parallel
  25. But be careful: ◦ Certain tests with dependencies (e.g. CRUD

    tests, queuing jobs) may be harder to run in parallel PARALLEL UNIT TESTING WITH PARATEST
  26. CI has one primary purpose: To improve the quality and

    speed of software delivery. PURPOSE OF CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION
  27. ◦ Don't run unit tests during CI ▫ Should be

    tested during development ◦ Focus on integration and systems tests (e.g. security, performance), and core suite of critical components PRIORITIES FOR CI TESTS
  28. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION IN 8 (EASY) STEPS 1. Convert integration tests

    into unit tests (or create unit tests) ▫ We need to make it clear where functionality is failing, which is not that clear with integration tests ▫ Remove DB dependencies 2. Automatically run unit tests upon commit ▫ Forbid pushes that do not pass tests 3. Fix all failing unit tests
  29. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION IN 8 (EASY) STEPS 4. Identify areas for

    parallelization (say that three times fast) ▫ E.g. jobs need to be tested immediately ▫ Certain CRUD operations need to be tested in sequence 5. Create integration test suite ▫ Define test data set needed ▫ Should comprise of critical (high priority) unit tests as well ▫ Staging/production security checks (e.g. uptime robot)
  30. CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION IN 8 (EASY) STEPS 6. Run integration tests

    during build process (within CI framework) ▫ Whoever breaks the build should be notified and assigned immediately. ▫ Policy should be: Can't go home unless issue is resolved; can roll back. ▫ Blow it up in Slack if needed. 7. Work with DevOps teams to build out systems tests ▫ 7b) Hire DevOps team 8. Communicate plan and create development tickets
  31. CREDITS Special thanks to SlidesCarnival for releasing this presentation template

    for free See you next month at: Chefs Plate Wednesday, December 13, 2017 Talk: Performance Tuning your PHP Applications Presented by David Chang (@davidchchang)
  32. BOOKS TO READ Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build,

    Test, and Deployment Automation Jez Humble, David Farley