Question

I am trying to implement some unit tests into a legacy PHP application.

There have been a number of challenges with this, but in particular for this question, I am currently looking at a small class that manages the app config.

The class interface is pretty simple; it does the following:

• The constructor calls a Populate method, that uses our Recordset class to load the config for the requested module from the database.
• Get method, which returns a specified config value.
• Set method, which sets the config value in memory.
• Save method, which writes the config update(s) back to the DB.

Testing the Get/Set methods is straightforward; they map directly to private array, and work pretty much as you’d expect.

The problem I have is with testing the database handling. The class uses a number of fields on the config table (module name, language, etc) to determine which config items to load and in what priority. In order to do so, it constructs a series of elaborate SQL strings, and then makes direct calls to the DB to get the correct config data.

I have no idea how to go about writing a unit test for this. Aside from the Get/Set methods, the class consists pretty much entirely of building SQL strings and running them.

I can’t see a way to test it sensibly without actually running it against a real DB, and all the issues that go with that — if nothing else, the complexity of the config loader would mean I’d need at least seven or eight test databases populated with slightly different config. It seems like it would be unmanageable and fragile, which would defeat the point somewhat.

Can anyone suggest how I should proceed from here? Is it even possible to unit test this kind of class?

Many thanks.

Answer 1

I must say I’m not sure I agree that unit tests would be somewhat pointless without hitting the database here. My goal would be to get the business logic that produces the SQL under test, without involving your database. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:

class Foo {

    // ... Getters and setters for your config ...

    public function doSomeBusinessLogicThenHitDb()
    {
        $sql = 'SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE ';
        $sql .= $this->_doSomethingComplicatedThatInvolvesParsingTheConfig();
        $this->_queryDb($sql);
    }

    protected function _queryDb($sql)
    {
        // Do something with a PDO or whatever
    }
}

Having abstracted the _queryDb() bit to a separate function, you can then write this test:

    public function testMyClassUnderSomeCircumstances()
    {
        // Set up config
        $exampleConfig = // whatever

        // Set up expected result
        $whatTheSqlShouldLookLikeForThisConfig = 'SELECT ... WHERE ...';

        // Set up a partial mock that doesn't actually hit the DB
        $myPartialMockObject = $this->getMock('Foo', array('_queryDb'), array(), '');
        $myPartialMockObject->expects($this->once())
                            ->method('_queryDb')
                            ->with($whatTheSqlShouldLookLikeForThisConfig);

        // Exercise the class under test
        $myPartialMockObject->setConfig($exampleConfig);
        $myPartialMockObject->doSomeBusinessLogicThenHitTheDb();
    }

The point of this test is to test the business logic that produces your SQL – not to test your database itself. By putting the expectation in place that the resulting SQL must look like whatever it must look like, you are ensuring that your tests will fail if innocent refactoring of _doSomethingComplicatedThatInvolvesParsingTheConfig() accidentally breaks your code, by making it produce different SQL from what it used to.

If testing the whole application, including its database, is your goal, try a proper integration testing suite like Selenium. Unit tests monitor individual classes and tell you when they’ve stopped behaving as they’re supposed to. You will face problems with speed of execution, and with error localisation (i.e. is the bug even in the code, let alone the class under test, or is it a DB thing?), if you let them overreach.