Real-World Solutions for Developing High-Quality PHP Frameworks and Applications

Chapter 2. Software Testing

It's okay to never test code that never changes. For everything else, you need tests.

—Timothy Fitz

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Black box and white box test defined

• Testing with equivalence classes

• Testing entire systems

• Testing signup and login functionality

• Advantages of acceptance tests

• Testing part of an application with unit tests

• Testing an example MVC controller

BLACK BOX AND WHITE BOX TESTS

In classical, non-iterative software development, programming and integration or system testing are two distinct project phases, and they often are executed by different teams. It makes lots of sense not to have developers test their own work. An independent tester approaches the product with a completely different view, because he does not know any implementation details. Thus, he is forced to focus on testing the API, and he uses the application in a different way than the original developer, who still thinks about the code intuitively and might tend to test the functionality that is already known to work. Independent testers usually develop enough destructive creativity to really put the developer's work to the test and try out really nonsensical input, interrupted actions, or even manipulated URLs. First-time users of an application, by the way, are also great testers.

Tests that are executed without knowledge about implementation details are called black box tests. Tests that are developed based on the source code of an application are called white box tests.

HOW MANY ...