So I’ve decided to investigate using seams in PHPUnit, but I came across a

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Asked: May 27, 20262026-05-27T16:14:53+00:00 2026-05-27T16:14:53+00:00

So I’ve decided to investigate using seams in PHPUnit, but I came across a

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So I’ve decided to investigate using seams in PHPUnit, but I came across a problem

I rearranged my class in a way that I broke the dependencies to database class

db_Class::getMyData($vars);

became

self::getMyData($vars);

and I added functions to my code

protected static function getMyData($vars) {
    return db_Class::getMyData($vars);
}

This was done so I can make a class that inherits this class and overloads the getMyData function. To be able to alter it when I run my test cases.

So for example in the seam class that extends the class above and overloads that function:

protected static function getMyData($vars) {
    return array('id'=>1, 'name'=>"My Name");
}

This would be very useful, as I can alter the data as I like. However when using PHPUnit you have the possibility to run mocks using $this->getMock and similar. Would I ever be able to achieve this inside the seam class.

I’m trying to look for a solution where I am not using a dependency injector, which would be my other alternative, not so bad at all, just want to evaluate both alternatives.

Michael C. Feathers expressed a seam to be the following:

A seam is a place where you can alter behavior in your program without editing in that place.

So I might not get the full picture, and I’ve been trying to get it for a while now, and I just cant get my head around it. Please comment if you have any ideas or questions.

What I ask for is a way to work with mocks easy in different scenarios. I dont always want to return the same value in the seam, sometimes I want to return null to get an error, and sometimes an array with correct data, and sometimes something else probably.

Thanks