How to unit test SugarCRM modules? - SugarForge

How to unit test SugarCRM modules
Ingo Jaeckel (ingo.jaeckel@student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de)
January 27, 2009
1 Introduction
You may experienced that it is not possible to write and execute unit tests as usual for
SugarCRM using the “usual suspects” (PHPUnit [1], SimpleTest [2]). I even developed a
tiny unit testing “framework” on my own and tried to unit test my SugarCRM modules
with it. Unfortunately, this was without any success.
However, there are other people having the same or related issues (see PHP bugtracker
[3], [4]).
I think that the way PHP handles global 1 variables and the way you execute the
SugarCRM code during the unit test 2 is the reason for these problems 3 .
This document shows you how to workaround most problems and be able
to unit test your code.
2 What’s the problem (short version)
SugarCRM uses a lot global variables (around 280). If you write some PHP unit
testcases you will write some methods. Within these methods you will write some
require_once statements to load the classes or methods you need. Or you wrote those
statements above the test case class that you defined.
However, when PHPUnit executes your tests after each other, something similiar
will happen: The SugarCRM code that will be executed in a testmethod will at some
point do some require_once calls to load the classes, methods or variables it needs.
Unfortunately those variables will never be “real globals” - Meaning if you try to get
access to them using the global statement, they will just be uninitialized 4 .
This means SugarCRM tries to create global variables at some point which does not
work, because we are in a testmethod and cannot create variables with global scope.. As
a consequence NOTHING really works. You will get tons of errors. If you fixed one
1 See the manual [5] for more information about the global statement in PHP.
2 See how Joel Hainley works around this problem by moving all global variables to a singleton [6].
3 Sebastian Bergmann gives a few hints about PHPUnit and globals on [7].
4 Sometimes () it is possible to access those variables with the $GLOBALS array. But you probably do
not want to modify any SugarCRM code just to get your unit testing stuff working.
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3 The solution..
problem (by modifying SugarCRM core files which is a great idea) you will constantly
get other problems. Yehaa!
3 The solution..
.. is actually quite simple. All you have to do is
1. Insert six SugarCRM specific lines into the phpunit script (see listing 1, lines 5-15).
Now all neccessary global variables are initialized and accessable.
1 #! / usr / bin / php -d safe_mode = Off
2 < php
3 // change to the sugarcrm root directory .
4 // this depends on your directory structure !!
5 chdir (’../../../ ’);
6 // initialize sugarcrm environment _before_ doing anything
else
7 define (’sugarEntry ’, TRUE );
8 require_once (’include / utils . php ’);
9 require_once (’include / modules . php ’);
10 require_once (’include / entryPoint . php ’);
11
12 // change to the directory containing your unit tests and the
13 // phpunit directory if neccessary . this depends on your setup
14 // and directory structure .
15 chdir (" include / UnitTests / PHP ");
16
17 /* here starts the original content of the phpunit script
18 * leave unchanged
19 */
20 require_once ’ PHPUnit / Util / Filter . php ’;
21 PHPUnit_Util_Filter :: addFileToFilter ( __FILE__ , ’ PHPUNIT ’);
22 require ’ PHPUnit / TextUI / Command . php ’;
23 >
Listing 1: You have to adjust the phpunit script like to workaround the unit testing
problems.
2. Disable the backup global variables feature of PHPUnit for your testcase(s) by
setting $backupGlobals (see listing 2).
1 < php
2 require_once (’PHPUnit / Framework . php ’);
3
4 class FirstTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {
2

References
5 protected $backupGlobals = FALSE ;
6 ...
7 }
8 >
Listing 2: Declare the protected variable $backupGlobals and set it to FALSE in your
testcase.
If you are through this list and disabled the backup of globals as shown in listing 2
you should be able to write unit tests as usual for your SugarCRM modules (see listing
3 for an example).
1 < php
2 require_once (’PHPUnit / Framework . php ’);
3
4 class FirstTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {
5 protected $backupGlobals = FALSE ;
6
7 public function testSomething () {
8 chdir (’../../../../ ’);
9 require_once (’modules / Users / User . php ’);
10
11 $u = new User ();
12 $list = $u -> get_list (’’, ’’);
13 $userList = $list [’list ’];
14
15 foreach ( $userList as $user ) {
16 $this -> assertNotNull ( $user );
17 $this -> assertFalse ( empty ( $user ->id));
18 }
19 }
20 }
21 >
Listing 3: A basic unit test that can be executed with a modified version of your phpunit
script.
References
[1] Phpunit. http://www.phpunit.de/.
[2] Simpletest. http://www.simpletest.org/.
[3] Objects disappear from the global scope.
http://bugs.php.net/bug.phpid=40604.
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References
[4] Inconsistent handling of $globals from included files.
http://bugs.php.net/bug.phpid=34689.
[5] Php manual entry about global statement. http://www.php.net/global.
[6] Phpunit and global variables. http://www.joelhainley.com/index.php/2008/
04/30/phpunit-and-global-variables/.
[7] Global variables and phpunit. http://sebastian-bergmann.de/archives/
797-Global-Variables-and-PHPUnit.html.
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