phpunit - reusing mock objects for multiple test suites

Question

I am curious as to how others approach this. Writing a test ain't so bad, but mocking kind of sucks a bit and cuts my flow. Is it ok for one to have a 'fixtures' directory and have say mock_db.php for example with just that particular mock declaration?

Going one step further, would it be bad practice to have those mocks abstracted in a function?

Ie:

 // function to include a db mock
   include_once 'test/fixtures/dbmock.php';

   $mockMYSQL = $dbmock('mysql', 'db1');
   $mockMSSQL = $dbmock('mssql', 'db2');

JUst interested to know how other experienced testers handle this. I'm writing scripts to sync 2 databases so this example may become very relevant.

Are you talking about PHPUnit mock objects created using $this->getMock('<class>') or are these custom-written mocks? Using fixtures to create test support objects is perfectly valid and recommended. — David Harkness
– David Harkness, Commented May 19, 2011 at 19:49
@David I would like to have mocks reusable for different test suites. Pretty green still with this mocking business, and clueless on how to implement this. — Stephane Gosselin
– Stephane Gosselin, Commented May 21, 2011 at 4:34

Ondřej Mirtes · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-21 21:09:52Z

4

I would go either with inheritance - having the common mock objects created and returned in protected get* methods in common parent test case class.

Or you can create cleaner and standalone class that you would instantiate in your test suites and let it create your mock objects. I would prefer this way, but it has one downside - you probably can not or should not use the PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase getMock() method. I recommend you to look at this method and try to use its logic in your standalone class.

Including global functions is not very OOP, it's rather magic that PHP allows but you should avoid it :)

answered May 21, 2011 at 21:09

Ondřej Mirtes

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3 Comments

Stephane Gosselin Over a year ago

Hey thanks for the tips, subclassing in the testcase for small classes is what the piece I was missing. I have already created a couple of standalones as per yer suggestion, but I still have to look into a way to reuse getMock() creators.

TheStoryCoder Over a year ago

8 years later... Anyone who could make an example of how to do this? :)

tonix Over a year ago

Subclassing TestCase has some issues regarding the $this context which will not refer to the same instance as the one automatically created by PHPUnit for the currently running test case. This will end up with PHPUnit not be aware of your expectations that you set up on the mock object, as the code reusing the mock creation logic will have its own $this. In this case you will either need to pass the $this instance of the class extending TestCase that has reusable mock creation logic and use this $this, or use a PHP trait instead and place your reusable logic in the trait.

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