Using PHPUnit to test cookies and sessions, how?

Question

With PHPUnit it's quite easy to test raw PHP code, but what about code that heavily relies on cookies? Sessions could be a good example.

Is there a method that doesn't require me to setup $_COOKIE with data during my test? It feels like a hacky way of doing things.

Answer 1

This is a common problem with code, especially lagacy PHP code. The common technique used is to further abstract the COOKIE/SESSION variables in related objects and using inversion of control technique(s) to pull those dependencies into scope.

http://martinfowler.com/articles/injection.html

Now before you execute a test you would instantiate a mock version of a Cookie/Session object and provide default data.

I imagine, the same effect can be achieved with legacy code by simply overriding the super global value before executing the test.

Cheers, Alex

Answer 2

I understand this is quite old, but I believe this needs to be updated as technology has improved since the original post. I was able to get sessions working with this solution using php 5.4 with phpunit 3.7:

class UserTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {
    //....
    public function __construct () {
        ob_start();
    }

    protected function setUp() {
       $this->object = new \User();
    }

    public function testUserLogin() {
       $this->object->setUsername('test');
       $this->object->setPassword('testpw');
       // sets the session within:
       $this->assertEquals(true, $this->object->login());
    }
}