1998 seems a long time ago now : it's the year the the Web Standards Project (WaSP) started fighting for standards.

Nearly ten years later, every web developper is now familiar with CSS : id & class are the new tools of the trade. The tricks you've learned while styling, you can re-use them when testing your web site.

I was about to start with the Flickr home page but then again, this is what the HTML source looks like :

[...] ]]> Who said too many tables ? So I picked something else... the SimpleTest home page !

[...] ]]>

As usual we start with the necessary require_once ]]> The DomTestCase extends the WebTestCase, we can just use it the same way.

assertTrue($this->get($url)); $this->assertEqual($this->getUrl(), $url); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'h2', array('Screenshots', 'Documentation', 'Contributing') ); } } ?> ]]>

I was expecting to get a nice green bar straight away : I did wrote the HTML template after all. Unfortunately it didn't happen, PHP gave me some nice exceptions :

home: /$ php dom_tester_doc_test.php
dom_tester_doc_test.php
Exception 1!
Unexpected PHP error [DOMDocument::loadHTML() [function.DOMDocument-loadHTML]: ID simpletestlogo already defined in Entity, line: 12] severity [E_WARNING] in [/Users/perrick/Sites/simpletest/extensions/dom_tester.php line 103]
in testGet
in TestOfLiveCssSelectors
Exception 2!
Unexpected PHP error [DOMDocument::loadHTML() [function.DOMDocument-loadHTML]: ID simpletestdownload already defined in Entity, line: 16] severity [E_WARNING] in [/Users/perrick/Sites/simpletest/extensions/dom_tester.php line 103]
in testGet
in TestOfLiveCssSelectors
Exception 3!
Unexpected PHP error [DOMDocument::loadHTML() [function.DOMDocument-loadHTML]: ID simpleteststarttesting already defined in Entity, line: 24] severity [E_WARNING] in [/Users/perrick/Sites/simpletest/extensions/dom_tester.php line 103]
in testGet
in TestOfLiveCssSelectors
Exception 4!
Unexpected PHP error [DOMDocument::loadHTML() [function.DOMDocument-loadHTML]: ID simpletestsupport already defined in Entity, line: 38] severity [E_WARNING] in [/Users/perrick/Sites/simpletest/extensions/dom_tester.php line 103]
in testGet
in TestOfLiveCssSelectors
FAILURES!!!
Test cases run: 1/1, Passes: 3, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 4

That's what validation is all about I guess.

Back to the drawing board... A simple fix later, everything is fine.

home: /$ php dom_tester_doc_test.php
dom_tester_doc_test.php
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Passes: 3, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0

If you thought it was easy, we can make things a little bit more difficult - or precise - with attribute selectors : assertTrue($this->get($url)); $this->assertEqual($this->getUrl(), $url); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'h2', array('Screenshots', 'Documentation', 'Contributing') ); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'a[href="http://simpletest.org/api/"]', array('the complete API', 'documented API') ); } } [...] ]]>

home: /$ php dom_tester_doc_test.php
dom_tester_doc_test.php
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Passes: 4, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0

Oh and by the way, combinators do work as well : assertTrue($this->get($url)); $this->assertEqual($this->getUrl(), $url); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'h2', array('Screenshots', 'Documentation', 'Contributing') ); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'a[href="http://simpletest.org/api/"]', array('the complete API', 'documented API') ); $this->assertElementsBySelector( 'div#content > p > strong', array('SimpleTest PHP unit tester') ); } } [...] ]]>

home: /$ php dom_tester_doc_test.php
dom_tester_doc_test.php
OK
Test cases run: 1/1, Passes: 5, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0

A Recorder for non-developpers. Exploring the Recorder results. The JUnit FAQ has plenty of useful testing advice. Next is grouping test cases together. You will need the SimpleTest testing framework for these examples. software development, php programming, programming php, software development tools, php tutorial, free php scripts, architecture, php resources, mock objects, junit, php testing, unit test, automated php testing, test cases tutorial, explain unit test case, unit test example, unit test