Learn the basics of Behavioral Driven Development (BDD) with Behat to build quality applications. Behat utilizes natural language syntax to define feature test scenarios. In this tutorial you will learn how to write integration tests for web applications. This will include utilizing Selenium WebDriver for real world multi-browser testing including introductions to Selenium Grid and Sauce Labs. Learn a better way to perform integration testing today!
3. Why Are You Here?
What is your role in the development lifecycle?
What is your reason for attending this session?
What do you hope to get out of this session?
What is your experience level with PHP, Behat,
and BDD?
4. Pre-Run Checklist
Make sure you have:
PHP 5.6+
Composer
A browser with the Selenium driver
Selenium Server Standalone (Optional for 2.x)
5. Gotchas
Missing one of these extensions:
curl
mbstring
openssl
No default timezone in PHP.ini
6.
7. What is BDD?
BDD is business driven, user focused, and test first.
It focuses on delivering business value as effectively
and efficiently as possible while maintaining
consistent quality throughout the entire application.
BDD is a methodology built around the principles of
lean development, extreme programming, test driven
development, and domain driven design.
8. What BDD Provides
Better understanding of the business requirement for
development and QA
Better understanding of existing features for the
business
Better communication via a ubiquitous language
Real insight into the business effect of a defect
9. What BDD Doesn’t Provide
The answer to all your problems
A replacement for unit testing
A replacement for manual testing
Super easy to implement everywhere right this second
A measure of code quality
12. Stay Focused
It is crucial to the success of BDD to focus on what
value a feature provides to the business.
Always understand the the role of the user and
their relationship to the feature.
Do not get distracted by the technical aspects of
the implementation.
14. Writing Features
Applications are comprised of features
BDD discretely separates each feature
Each feature contains a narrative and a scenario
Feature may also contain a background to set the
stage for the feature scenarios
15. Narrative
Feature narratives are written similarly to Agile/Scrum
stories and must answer these questions:
What is the business benefit?
Who is the beneficiary?
What is the action performed?
16. Background
A background should contain steps common to all, or
at least most, scenarios to prepare the application
environment for the scenarios.
Background steps should be tested elsewhere as part
of another feature.
Steps failing in the background steps will identify that
the failure is not related to the feature.
17. Scenario
A scenarios should contain a narrative
Scenarios work in a manner similar to unit tests by arranging
the environment necessary to begin the test, perform
actions, and then assert that the expected results have been
attained
Scenarios should not test multiple features. Do not perform
actions after assertions.
18. Scenario Outline
Scenario outlines use a common set of steps with
placeholders for data provided in a data table.
They are a replacement for multiple scenarios in which
data is the only differentiator and does not define the
feature. Adding sales tax would be an example of a
feature in which the data in the action and assertion
would be different.
19. Step
Steps do one of the following:
Arrange the environment
Perform an action
Assert a result of the previous actions
Steps should be reasonably reusable
Steps should be aggregated for simplification when
arranging the environment
20.
21. What is Behat?
Open source Behavior Driven Development
framework for PHP
Official PHP implementation of Cucumber
One of the easiest Cucumber implementations to
get up and running quickly
Good documentation: http://docs.behat.org
22. Installation
PHAR installation
Single global install
One version for feature contexts
Project Installation
Composer based install as dependency
Version and dependencies tied to project
24. Command Line Executable
Allows for initializing the environment
Running features
Features and scenarios filterable by tags
Chooses environment
Listing step definitions
25. Configuration File
Split up into profiles
(inherit from default)
Configures custom
autoloader path
Defines global tag filters
Defines output
formatters
Defines feature suites
Configures extensions
26. Feature Context
Defines steps
May extend other contexts
May access other contexts
May add hooks for pre/post tag, step, scenario,
feature, and suite execution.
27. Gherkin
Gherkin is a Domain Specific Language (DSL)
utilized to write Features in Behat. It uses key words
to identify the type of step:
Given – Arrange
When – Act
Then - Assert
28. Example Gherkin
Feature: Home Page
Scenario: Login Link
Given I am on the homepage
When I click " Login"
Then I will be on the "LaunchKey | Log in"
page
29. Step Backing Code
Method on a feature context
Contains doc block annotated (@) matchers
Support defined in context. Defaults to Turnip
Supports Turnip and regular expressions
Can contain examples doc block
Can contain descript in the doc block
30. Example Step
/**
* Opens homepage
* Example: Given I am on "/"
* Example: When I go to "/"
* Example: And I go to "/”
* @Given (I )am on :path
* @When (I )go to :path
*/
public function visitPath($path)
{
$this->browser->open($path);
}
40. What About Clean Up
Requirement:
E-Mail Address is the user identifier and must be
unique among all users
We’re going to have to clean up users in a hook
41. Steps Need to Be Intuitive
Checking for errors on registration submission
will require a custom step with some additional
logic
42. Add Other Requirements
E-Mail Address is the user identifier and must be
unique among all users
Name is required and captures the users name
Password is required and must utilize a verification
field to ensure correct password entry
43. Finish Up Labs/Examples
Server and Behat features found in GitHub:
https://github.com/aenglander/bdd-with-behat-for-
beginners
Master branch is Behat
Master is tagged to go step by step
Server branch is server
44. Selenium
Industry standard
Server with remote API
Direct integration with Behat/Mink via Selenium
Driver
Can be used headless with PhantomJS via
GhostDriver implementation
45. Using Selenium Server
Add config to bahat.yml and specify browser
Apply @javascript tag to scenarios or a feature
Start Selenium Standalone Server
Run tests
46. Selenium Grid
Allows for multiple simultaneous test runs, multiple
browser versions, and multiple operating systems
One Hub and Multiple Nodes
Uses same app as Standalone Server
Can be flakey and hard to manage
47. Sauce Labs/BrowserStack
Special Drivers for Sauce Labs and
BrowserStack
Not well documented but work very well
Allow for a “Grid” style environment without
managing the Grid
48. Configuring Mink Driver
Poorly documented
Easy to figure out the settings by looking at the
driver factories. See:
vendor/behat/mink-
extension/src/Behat/MinkExtension/ServiceContainer
/Driver
51. Best Practices (cont.)
Make steps visually verifiable. Feature files
should be able to serve as documentation
Clean up after yourself
Scenarios should be idempotent
Spend the time to do it the right way
Editor's Notes
Extensions are usually pre-enabled by default with Linux or Mac package managers. Windows users need to uncomment the line n the php.ini.
Search for “date.timezone”. Set it to whatever you like. If you are not sure you can use “UTC”.
The direct correlation between the SOAP box and BDD is the reason BDD is becoming more and more popular.
I never meant to learn BDD. I was just looking for a tool to help me stop breaking a critical legacy business application every time we released a new feature. We had built entire integration testing platforms but they would not give me or the business what we needed to identify defects and were constantly giving false positives and negatives to the brittle nature of the tests. The first step was using feature based testing with Cucumber and then Behat when it became available.
Embracing BDD, like everything else in my career, was a process of enlightenment. It took time and required pain to drive growth.
Feature: A visitor can access the homepage
In order to use the site
As a site visitor
I can access the website
Scenario: Homepage loads
When I go to the homepage
Then I should see "Your Application's Landing Page. "
Feature: User Registration
In order to be a user
As a visitor
I can register for a user account
Background:
Given I am on "/register"
Scenario: Proper fields register the user
When I fill in the following:
| Name | Adam |
| E-Mail Address | test.email@launchkey.com |
| Password | Password1 |
| Confirm Password | Password1 |
And I press "Register"
Then I should be on the homepage
And the response should contain "Logout"
use Behat\Behat\Hook\Scope\BeforeScenarioScope;
/**
* @BeforeScenario
*/
public function cleanupUsers(BeforeScenarioScope $scope) {
$this->mink = $scope->getEnvironment()->getContext('Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext');
$this->mink->visit(‘/delete-test-users’);
}
/** * @Then the :field field should have an error */ public function theFieldHasAnError($field) { $has = $this->mink->getSession() ->getPage() ->findField($field) ->getParent() ->has('css', 'span.help-block'); if ( ! $has) { throw new \Exception("Field \"{$field}\" has no error"); } }