This document provides an overview of the Behavior Driven Development (BDD) testing tools PHPSpec and Behat. It discusses how BDD differs from traditional test-driven development (TDD) in focusing on complete features rather than individual units. The document demonstrates using Behat and PHPSpec to write feature files and specifications for a sample time-off request application before implementing the code. Key steps include generating Behat and PHPSpec configuration files, writing feature files, generating PHPSpec specifications, and then implementing the code.

1. PHPSpec & Behat: Two Testing
Tools That Write Code For You
Presented by Joshua Warren

2. OR:

4. I heard you like to code, so
let’s write code that writes
code while you code.

5. About Me

6. PHP Developer
Working with PHP since 1999

7. Founder & CEO
Founded Creatuity in 2008
PHP Development Firm
Focused on the Magento
platform

8. JoshuaWarren.com
@JoshuaSWarren

9. IMPORTANT!
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10. What You Need To Know
ASSUMPTIONS

11. Today we assume you’re a PHP developer.

12. That you are familiar with test driven development.

13. And that you’ve at least tried PHPUnit, Selenium or
another testing tool.

14. BDD - no, the B does not stand for beer, despite what a Brit might tell you
Behavior Driven
Development

15. Think of BDD as stepping up a level from TDD.

16. Graphic thanks to BugHuntress

17. TDD generally deals with functional units.

18. BDD steps up a level to consider complete features.

19. In BDD, you write feature files in the form of user
stories that you test against.

20. BDD uses a ubiquitous language - basically, a
language that business stakeholders, project
managers, developers and our automated tools can
all understand.

21. Sample Behat Feature File
Feature: Up and Running
In order to confirm Behat is Working
As a developer
I need to see a homepage
Scenario: Homepage Exists
When I go to "/bdd/"
Then I should see "Welcome to the world of BDD"

22. BDD gets all stakeholders to agree on what “done”
looks like before you write a single line of code

23. Behat

24. We implement BDD in PHP with a tool called
Behat

25. Behat is a free, open source tool designed for
BDD and PHP

26. behat.org

27. SpecBDD - aka, Testing Tongue Twisters
Specification Behavior Driven
Development

28. Before you write a line of code, you write a
specification for how that code should work

29. Focuses you on architectural decisions up-front

30. PHPSpec

31. Open Source tool for specification driven development
in PHP

32. www.phpspec.net

33. Why Use Behat and
PHPSpec?

34. These tools allow you to focus exclusively on
logic

35. Helps build functional testing coverage quickly

36. Guides planning and ensuring that all stakeholders are
in agreement

37. Why Not PHPUnit?

38. PHPSpec is opinionated - in every sense of the word

39. PHPSpec forces you to think differently and creates a
mindset that encourages usage

40. PHPSpec tests are much more readable

41. Read any of Marcello Duarte’s slides on testing

42. What About Performance?

43. Tests that take days to run won’t be used

44. PHPSpec is fast

45. Behat supports parallel execution

46. Behat and PHPSpec will be at least as fast as the
existing testing tools, and can be much faster

47. Enough Theory:
Let’s Build Something!

48. We’ll be building a basic time-off request app.

49. Visitors can specify their name and a reason
for their time off request.

50. Time off requests can be viewed, approved
and denied.

51. Intentionally keeping things simple, but you
can follow this pattern to add authentication,
roles, etc.

52. Want to follow along or view the sample
code?

53. Vagrant box:
https://github.com/joshuaswarren/bdd-box
Project code:
https://github.com/joshuaswarren/bdd

54. Setting up Our Project

55. Setup a folder for your project

56. Use composer to install Behat, phpspec & friends

57. composer require behat/behat —dev

58. composer require behat/mink-goutte-driver —dev

59. composer require phpspec/phpspec —dev

60. We now have Behat and Phpspec installed

61. We also have Mink - an open source browser
emulator/controller

62. Mink Drivers
Goutte - headless, fast, no JS
Selenium2 - requires Selenium server, slower,
supports JS
Zombie - headless, fast, does support JS

63. We are using Goutte today because we don’t need
Javascript support

64. We’ll perform some basic configuration to let Behat
know to use Goutte

65. And we need to let phpspec know where our code
should go

66. Run:
vendor/bin/behat —init

67. Create /behat.yml
default:
extensions:
BehatMinkExtension:
base_url: http://192.168.33.10/
default_session: goutte
goutte: ~

68. features/bootstrap/FeatureContext.php
use BehatBehatContextContext;
use BehatBehatContextSnippetAcceptingContext;
use BehatGherkinNodePyStringNode;
use BehatGherkinNodeTableNode;
use BehatMinkExtensionContextMinkContext;
/**
* Defines application features from the specific context.
*/
class FeatureContext extends BehatMinkExtensionContextMinkContext
{
}

69. Create /phpspec.yml
suites:
app_suites:
namespace: App
psr4_prefix: App
src_path: app

70. Features

71. features/UpAndRunning.feature
Feature: Up and Running
In order to confirm Behat is Working
As a developer
I need to see a homepage
Scenario: Homepage Exists
When I go to "/bdd/"
Then I should see "Welcome to the world of BDD"

72. Run:
bin/behat

73. features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Submit Time Off Request
In order to request time off
As a developer
I need to be able to fill out a time off request form
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
Then I should see "New Time Off Request"
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Works
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
And I fill in "name" with "Josh"
And I fill in "reason" with "Attending a great conference"
And I press "submit"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Submitted"

74. features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Submit Time Off Request
In order to request time off
As a developer
I need to be able to fill out a time off request form
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
Then I should see "New Time Off Request"
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Works
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
And I fill in "name" with "Josh"
And I fill in "reason" with "Attending a great conference"
And I press "submit"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Submitted"

75. features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Submit Time Off Request
In order to request time off
As a developer
I need to be able to fill out a time off request form
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
Then I should see "New Time Off Request"
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Works
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
And I fill in "name" with "Josh"
And I fill in "reason" with "Attending a great conference"
And I press "submit"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Submitted"

76. features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Submit Time Off Request
In order to request time off
As a developer
I need to be able to fill out a time off request form
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
Then I should see "New Time Off Request"
Scenario: Time Off Request Form Works
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/new"
And I fill in "name" with "Josh"
And I fill in "reason" with "Attending a great conference"
And I press "submit"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Submitted"

77. features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Process Time Off Request
In order to manage my team
As a manager
I need to be able to approve and deny time off requests
Scenario: Time Off Request Management View Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
Then I should see "Manage Time Off Requests"
Scenario: Time Off Request List
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
Then I should see "Pending Time Off Request Details"
Scenario: Approve Time Off Request
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
And I press "Approve"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Approved"
Scenario: Deny Time Off Request
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
And I press "Deny"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Denied"

78. features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature
Feature: Process Time Off Request
In order to manage my team
As a manager
I need to be able to approve and deny time off requests

79. features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature
Scenario: Time Off Request Management View Exists
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
Then I should see "Manage Time Off Requests"
Scenario: Time Off Request List
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
Then I should see "Pending Time Off Request Details"

80. features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature
Scenario: Approve Time Off Request
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
And I press "Approve"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Approved"
Scenario: Deny Time Off Request
When I go to "/bdd/timeoff/manage"
And I press "View"
And I press "Deny"
Then I should see "Time Off Request Denied"

81. run behat: bin/behat

82. Behat Output
--- Failed scenarios:
features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature:6
features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature:10
features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature:15
features/ProcessTimeOffRequest.feature:21
features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature:6
features/SubmitTimeOffRequest.feature:10
7 scenarios (1 passed, 6 failed)
22 steps (8 passed, 6 failed, 8 skipped)
0m0.61s (14.81Mb)

83. Behat Output
Scenario: Time Off Request Management View Exists
When I go to “/bdd/timeoff/manage"
Then I should see "Manage Time Off Requests"
The text "Manage Time Off Requests" was not found
anywhere in the text of the current page.

85. These failures show us that Behat is testing
our app properly, and now we just need to
write the application logic.

86. Specifications

87. Now we write specifications for how our
application should work.

88. These specifications should provide the logic
to deliver the results that Behat is testing for.

89. bin/phpspec describe AppTimeoff

90. PHPSpec generates a basic spec file for us

91. specTimeoffSpec.php
namespace specApp;
use PhpSpecObjectBehavior;
use ProphecyArgument;
class TimeoffSpec extends ObjectBehavior
{
function it_is_initializable()
{
$this->shouldHaveType('AppTimeoff');
}
}

92. This default spec tells PHPSpec to expect a
class named Timeoff.

93. Now we add a bit more to the file so PHPSpec
will understand what this class should do.

94. specTimeoffSpec.php
function it_creates_timeoff_requests() {
$this->create("Name", "reason")->shouldBeString();
}
function it_loads_all_timeoff_requests() {
$this->loadAll()->shouldBeArray();
}
function it_loads_a_timeoff_request() {
$this->load("uuid")->shouldBeArray();
}
function it_loads_pending_timeoff_requests() {
$this->loadPending()->shouldBeArray();
}
function it_approves_timeoff_requests() {
$this->approve("id")->shouldReturn(true);
}
function it_denies_timeoff_requests() {
$this->deny("id")->shouldReturn(true);
}

95. specTimeoffSpec.php
function it_creates_timeoff_requests() {
$this->create("Name", "reason")->shouldBeString();
}
function it_loads_all_timeoff_requests() {
$this->loadAll()->shouldBeArray();
}

96. specTimeoffSpec.php
function it_loads_a_timeoff_request() {
$this->load("uuid")->shouldBeArray();
}
function it_loads_pending_timeoff_requests() {
$this->loadPending()->shouldBeArray();
}

97. specTimeoffSpec.php
function it_approves_timeoff_requests() {
$this->approve("id")->shouldReturn(true);
}
function it_denies_timeoff_requests() {
$this->deny("id")->shouldReturn(true);
}

98. Now we run PHPSpec once more…

99. Phpspec output
10 ✔ is initializable
15 ! creates timeoff requests
method AppTimeoff::create not found.
19 ! loads all timeoff requests
method AppTimeoff::loadAll not found.
23 ! loads pending timeoff requests
method AppTimeoff::loadPending not found.
27 ! approves timeoff requests
method AppTimeoff::approve not found.
31 ! denies timeoff requests
method AppTimeoff::deny not found.

100. Lots of failures…

101. But wait a second - PHPSpec prompts us!

102. PHPSpec output
Do you want me to create `AppTimeoff::create()` for you?
[Y/n]

103. PHPSpec will create the class and the methods for
us!

104. This is very powerful with frameworks like Laravel and
Magento, which have PHPSpec plugins that help
PHPSpec know where class files should be located.

105. And now, the easy part…

106. Implementation

107. Implement logic in the new Timeoff class in
the locations directed by PHPSpec

108. Implement each function one at a time, running
phpspec after each one.

109. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function create($name, $reason)
{
$uuid1 = Uuid::uuid1();
$uuid = $uuid1->toString();
DB::table('requests')->insert([
'name' => $name,
'reason' => $reason,
'uuid' => $uuid,
]);
return $uuid;
}

110. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function load($uuid) {
$results = DB::select('select * from requests WHERE
uuid = ?', [$uuid]);
return $results;
}

111. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function loadAll()
{
$results = DB::select('select * from requests');
return $results;
}

112. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function loadPending()
{
$results = DB::select('select * from requests WHERE
reviewed = ?', [0]);
return $results;
}

113. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function approve($uuid)
{
DB::update('update requests set reviewed = 1,
approved = 1 where uuid = ?', [$uuid]);
return true;
}

114. specTimeoffSpec.php
public function deny($uuid)
{
DB::update('update requests set reviewed = 1,
approved = 0 where uuid = ?', [$uuid]);
return true;
}

115. phpspec should be returning all green

116. Move on to implementing the front-end
behavior

117. Using Lumen means our view/display logic is
very simple

118. appHttproute.php
$app->get('/bdd/', function() use ($app) {
return "Welcome to the world of BDD";
});

119. appHttproute.php
$app->get('/bdd/timeoff/new/', function() use ($app) {
if(Request::has('name')) {
$to = new AppTimeoff();
$name = Request::input('name');
$reason = Request::input('reason');
$to->create($name, $reason);
return "Time off request submitted";
} else {
return view('request.new');
}
});

120. appHttproute.php
$app->get('/bdd/timeoff/manage/', function() use ($app) {
$to = new AppTimeoff();
if(Request::has('uuid')) {
$uuid = Request::input('uuid');
if(Request::has('process')) {
$process = Request::input('process');
if($process == 'approve') {
$to->approve($uuid);
return "Time Off Request Approved";
} else {
if($process == 'deny') {
$to->deny($uuid);
return "Time Off Request Denied";
}
}
} else {
$request = $to->load($uuid);
return view('request.manageSpecific', ['request' => $request]);
}
} else {
$requests = $to->loadAll();
return view('request.manage', ['requests' => $requests]);
}

121. appHttproute.php
$app->get('/bdd/timeoff/manage/', function() use ($app) {
$to = new AppTimeoff();
if(Request::has('uuid')) {
$uuid = Request::input('uuid');
if(Request::has('process')) {
$process = Request::input('process');
if($process == 'approve') {
$to->approve($uuid);
return "Time Off Request Approved";
} else {
if($process == 'deny') {
$to->deny($uuid);
return "Time Off Request Denied";
}
}
…

122. appHttproute.php
…
} else {
$request = $to->load($uuid);
return view('request.manageSpecific',
['request' => $request]);
}
…

123. appHttproute.php
…
} else {
$requests = $to->loadAll();
return view('request.manage', ['requests' =>
$requests]);
}

124. Our views are located in resourcesviewsrequest and
are simple HTML forms

125. Once we’re done with the implementation, we
move on to…

126. Testing

127. Once we’re done, running phpspec run should
return green

128. Once phpspec returns green, run behat, which
should return green as well

129. We now know that our new feature is working
correctly without needing to open a web
browser

130. This allows us to flow from function to
function as we implement our app, without
breaking our train of thought.

131. PHPSpec gives us confidence that the
application logic was implemented correctly.

132. Behat gives us confidence that the feature is
being displayed properly to users.

133. Running both as we refactor and add new
features will give us confidence we haven’t
broken an existing feature

134. Success!

135. Our purpose today was to get you hooked on
Behat & PHPSpec and show you how easy it is
to get started.

136. Behat and PHPSpec are both powerful tools

137. PHPSpec can be used at a very granular level
to ensure your application logic works
correctly

138. Advanced Behat & PHPSpec

139. I encourage you to learn more about Behat &
phpspec. Here’s a few areas to consider…

140. Parallel Execution

141. A few approaches to running Behat in parallel
to improve it’s performance. Start with:
shvetsgroup/ParallelRunner

142. Behat - Reusable Actions

143. “I should see”, “I go to” are just steps - you can
write your own steps.

144. Mocking & Prophesying

145. Mock objects are simulated objects that
mimic the behavior of real objects

146. Helpful to mock very complex objects, or
objects that you don’t want to call while
testing - i.e., APIs

147. Prophecy is a highly opinionated PHP mocking
framework by the Phpspec team

148. Take a look at the sample code on Github - I
mocked a Human Resource Management
System API

149. Mocking with Prophecy
$this->prophet = new ProphecyProphet;
$prophecy = $this->prophet->prophesize('AppHrmsApi');
$prophecy->getUser(Argument::type('string'))-
>willReturn('name');
$prophecy->decrement('name', Argument::type('integer'))-
>willReturn(true);
$dummyApi = $prophecy->reveal();

150. PhantomJS

151. Can use PhantomJS with Behat to render
Javascript, including automated screenshots
and screenshot comparison

152. Two Tasks For You

153. Next week, setup Behat and PHPSpec on one
of your projects and take it for a quick test by
implementing one short feature.

154. Keep In Touch!
• joind.in/14919
• @JoshuaSWarren
• JoshuaWarren.com