PHPUnit integration with CodeIgniter

This is an attempt of integrating PHPUnit with CodeIgniter. This provides a clean way of bootstrapping the framework and then performing tests on the Model layer. The use is very simple as it does not require any change in how a regular CodeIgniter application is built.

How it works

• The provided PHPUnit bootstrap file sets the CI environment as testing and then loads the framework normally - the code is taken directly from the index.php file.

• A display_override hook checks if the environment is set to testing or not and when it is, it refrains from outputting the rendered view file

• The PHPUnit test case file now can get a reference of the CI object using the commonly used &get_instance() method and can load models and other libraries as needed.

• It is good to have separate database configuration for testing and it might be useful to load the test database with fresh data every time test runs - it can be easily added in the setUp method using the Database Forge classes

Example

<?php

class PostTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    private $CI;

    public function setUp()
    {
        $this->CI = &get_instance();
        $this->CI->load->database('testing');
    }

    public function testGetsAllPosts()
    {
        $this->CI->load->model('post');
        $posts = $this->CI->post->getAll();

        $this->assertEquals(1, count($posts));
    }
}