Testing Tools for PHP

Question

Hi ,

any good open source/commercial PHP testing tools available??

Answer 1

Do you mean a site where you can run PHP code in order to test it? Like localhost?

OK, I'll give you an answer without the smarm :-).

Here, get started with XAMPP http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html. I don't know of any in-browser PHP testing methods, and I can (off the top of my head) think of several ways that a good coder might exploit a site that uses eval() to run user-submitted code. They'd basically be giving anybody free range to run code on their server. But look...get started on XAMPP and there you can start testing PHP scripts without even needing an internet connection. Also if you're interested in a good PHP beginner's guide, see here:

http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp

Answer 2

Check out PHPUnit:

http://www.phpunit.de/

Answer 3

I can also recommend FirePHP with will enable you to debug your code using the Firebug plugin for Firefox.

Answer 4

I don't know exactly what do you want to test but here are some tools which help during development:

• PHPUnit for unit tests
• CodeSniffer for coding standards
• PHP Mess Detector for code quality

For testing a web application within your web browser automatically try Selenium.

Answer 5

One especially handy tool to debug is xdebug. Install through PECL. Integrated with your IDE you'll be able to interactively step through code. Without the IDE and it'll prettify your errors and help you test them.

For automatically testing the app itself, Selenium seems to be the best choice. Note that I don't use it, but it will automatically simulate going to a page, filling in data on a form, etc. It's basically a way to automate users' activity in a browser.

The other suggestions are all apt as well.

Answer 6

To test the code you should write unit tests. This requires two tools, what you need is a debugger (xdebug or zend debugger) and phpunit. They can be written in any editor. If you haven't done this before here is an intro article.

http://devzone.zend.com/article/2772

To test the output of the code (HTML,CSS,JS) you should use a different tool. A GUI testing tool is what you use for this job. Here is a list of these tools. Selenium and Selenium based tools is probably the way to go, but the best decision depends on the company and lack thereof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GUI_testing_tools

Answer 7

Not sure if this is for debugging or for testing but i found WAMP to be a good alternative to XAMP. Thats what i use for testing