How to unit test HTML output with PHPUnit?

Question

I'm new to PHPUnit, and I'm having some trouble with unit testing HTML output.

My test follows:

/**
* @covers Scrap::removeTags
*
*/
public function testRemoveTags() {

    // Variables
    $simple_parameter        = 'script';
    $array_parameter         = array('script', 'div');
    $html                    = '<div class="pubanunciomrec" style="background:#FFFFFF;"><script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_slot = "9853257829"; google_ad_width = 300; google_ad_height = 250; //--></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script></div><table></table>';

    // Expected HTML
    $expected_html_whitout_script     = new DOMDocument;
    $expected_html_whitout_script->loadHTML('<div class="pubanunciomrec" style="background:#FFFFFF;"></div><table></table>');
    $expected_html_without_script_div = new DOMDocument;
    $expected_html_without_script_div->loadHTML('<table></table>');

    // Actual HTML
    $actual_whitout_script     = new DOMDocument;
    $actual_whitout_script->loadHTML($this->scrap->removeTags($html, $simple_parameter));
    $actual_without_script_div = new DOMDocument;
    $actual_without_script_div->loadHTML($this->scrap->removeTags($html, $array_parameter));


    // Test
    $this->assertEquals($expected_html_whitout_script, $actual_whitout_script);
    $this->assertEquals($expected_html_without_script_div, $actual_without_script_div);

}

My problem is that the DOMDocument object generates some HTML code and I can't compare it. How can I print the DOMDocument object to see the output? Any clues on how to compare the HTML?

Sorry for my bad english.

Best Regards,

Answer 1

You may want to consider looking at Selenium. It is a browser-based testing tool for doing functional tests for a web site.

You write scripts which involve loading a web browser and simulating clicks and other actions, and then doing asserts to check that, for example, specific page elements are present, in the correct place or contain the expected values.

The tests can be written using an IDE that runs as a plug-in for Firefox, but they can be run against all the major browsers.

We have a suite of Selenium tests that run as part of our CI process, allowing us to see very quickly if something has gone wrong with our HTML output.

All in all, its a very powerful testing tool.

Also, it integrates with PHPUnit (and other language-specific tools), so it does answer your question, although probably not in the way you were thinking of.

Answer 2

Since 2013, there is another way to test HTML Output using PHPUnit. It is using assertTag() method that can be found in PHPUnit 3.7 and 3.8.

For example :

// Matcher that asserts that there is an element with an id="my_id".
$matcher = array('id' => 'my_id');

// Matcher that asserts that there is a "span" tag.
$matcher = array('tag' => 'span');

// Matcher that asserts that there is a "div", with an "ul" ancestor and a "li"
// parent (with class="enum"), and containing a "span" descendant that contains
// an element with id="my_test" and the text "Hello World".
$matcher = array(
    'tag'      => 'div',
    'ancestor' => array('tag' => 'ul'),
    'parent'   => array(
        'tag'        => 'li',
        'attributes' => array('class' => 'enum')
    ),
    'descendant' => array(
        'tag'   => 'span',
        'child' => array(
            'id'      => 'my_test',
            'content' => 'Hello World'
        )
    )
);

// Use assertTag() to apply a $matcher to a piece of $html.
$this->assertTag($matcher, $html);

Read more in official PHPUnit Website.