Behat

Note

This documentation page is in progress and might suffer modifications.

Behat is an open source Behavior-Driven Development framework for PHP. Behat features are writen in Gherkin, which is a human readable language for writing (and at the same time documenting) test cases. A simple example to undestand the Gherkins syntax:

Feature: Refund item
 Scenario: Jeff returns a faulty computer
   Given: Jeff has bought a computer for $900
   And: he has a receipt
   When: he returns the computer
   Then: Jeff should be refunded $900

Local Set Up

1. Install composer

To install the Behat dependencies will rely on Composer. Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.

Check the Composer documentation on how to install and configure it in your development environment.

2. Install Behat and Mink extension

Under the root folder of your Moodle installation, run the following to install Behat:

composer require --dev behat/behat

Mink is an open source browser controller/emulator for web applications, written in PHP.

composer require --dev behat/mink
composer require --dev behat/mink-extension
composer require --dev behat/mink-goutte-driver
composer require --dev behat/mink-selenium2-driver
composer require --dev dvdoug/behat-code-coverage

3. Create dataroot folder for Behat

Create a new dataroot folder for Behat. It is recommended that you create this folder in the same directory as your moodledata folder. You can name this folder anyway you like, but a recommended name is moodledata_behat.

4. Update local configuration

  1. Open the config.php file located in your moodle root location.

  2. Search for the line require_once(__DIR__ . '/lib/setup.php');

  3. Paste the following code before the line indicated in the previous step:

    $CFG->behat_dataroot = '/path/to/the/dataroot/you/created';
$CFG->behat_wwwroot = 'http://127.0.0.1/path/to/your/site';
$CFG->behat_prefix = 'beh_';

  4. Replace the property $CFG->wwwroot if necessary:

    //Make sure you use localhost here instead of 127.0.0.1
$CFG->wwwroot = 'http://localhost/path/to/your/site';

    Note

    About behat_wwwroot

    You will need to set the $CFG->behat_wwwroot to your Moodle site, but it must use a different value to your $CFG->wwwroot.

    One common way to do this is to use 127.0.0.1 for behat, but localhost for standard use. Alternatively you can add an additional hostname in your /etc/hosts file and use this instead.

5. Initialise Behat

Next, we need to initialise the Behat testing environment, and create the tests site. For this, we first are going to

First, you need to clone the moodle-browser-config repository in the root folder of your Moodle instalation:

After the repository is succesfully downloaded, we need to add it as a requirement in the config.php file before the line require_once( __DIR__ . '/lib/setup.php') :

require_once( __DIR__ . '/moodle-browser-config/init.php');

Then, we can run the Behat script to create the test environment and site:

php admin/tool/behat/cli/init.php

Be patient, this process can take a while. After it completes succesfully, a message like the following will appear:

Acceptance tests environment enabled on http://127.0.0.1/moodle, to run the tests use:
vendor/bin/behat --config /var/moodledata_behat/behatrun/behat/behat.yml

6. Add MOODLE_ROOT environment variable

export MOODLE_ROOT=<your_moodle_installation>

7. Run the oppia_mobile_export block tests

### Using Selenium

  1. Start a Selenium standalone server

    cd oppia_mobile_export/tests/lib
java -jar selenium-server-4.5.3.jar standalone &

  2. Run the features

    # From the root folder of your moodle installation
./vendor/bin/behat --config blocks/oppia_mobile_export/tests/behat/behat.yml

### Using Geckodriver (Firefox)

  1. Start the geckodriver server

    geckodriver

  2. Run the features

    # From the root folder of your moodle installation
./vendor/bin/behat --config blocks/oppia_mobile_export/tests/behat/behat.yml --profile=geckodriver

Writing new Behat features

You should locate all new features in oppia_mobile_export/test/behat. Behat will run all .feature files located in that folder. For extending an existing feature, create a new Scenario clause in the feature file.

HTML Report and Code Coverage

When the Behat tests have finished, two new folders should have been created:

  • tests/behat/report: This folder contains the HTML report of the Behat run. Open the index.html file in your browser to see it.

  • tests/behat/CodeCoverage: This folder contains the code coverage report in HTML format.