Question

I have an API module in my application which is a RESTful API – basically set of public web services. I want to unit test my web services with PHPUnit. Now the problem…

Normally my app uses “dbname” database. But when unit testing with PHPUnit, I would like it to use “dbname_test” database (which contains the same set of tables, of course).

What is the best way to achieve this? In my PHPUnit test cases I am using Zend_Http_Client to send requests to my API module and then I am asserting the returned responses.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I would put a testing section in my application.ini:

[production]
...
; Database.
resources.db.adapter = "PDO_MYSQL"
resources.db.params.host = "localhost"
resources.db.params.username = "user"
resources.db.params.password = "pass"
resources.db.params.dbname = "primary"

[testing : production]
resources.db.params.username = "test"
resources.db.params.password = "test"
resources.db.params.dbname = "testing"

Set an environment variable in my .htaccess:

SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV testing

And make sure I load the proper settings:

defined('APPLICATION_ENV')
    || define('APPLICATION_ENV', (getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') ? getenv('APPLICATION_ENV') : 'production'));
$application = new Zend_Application(
    APPLICATION_ENV,
    array('config' => array(
        APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini',
        APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/additional.ini',
    ))  
);

Another idea

Conditionally set the APPLICATION_ENV variable in .htaccess based on remote IP and user agent. If both do not match, then production is used.

SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV production

SetEnvIf       Remote_Addr 55\.55\.55\.555 APPLICATION_ENV=testing
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent  !PHPUNIT        APPLICATION_ENV=production