Behat-PhantomJS Example

A "hello world" implementation of Behat testing using PhantomJS.

Behat is a great PHP framework for Behavior Driven Development. But if you want to use it to test a site that uses JavaScript as an essential part of its behavior, not every Behat driver executes JavaScript. One great way to get that JavaScript to be executed is with the PhantomJS headless web browser.

This project is a simple setup showing Behat and PhantomJS working together. It includes a web page that executes some trivial JavaScript, a Behat test case that tests that JavaScript, the config for Behat to run the test through PhantomJS so the JavaScript actually runs.

Setting this project up is literally my first time using Behat or PhantomJS, so please let me know at @CodingItWrong how I can improve it!

Installation

Make sure the following are installed on your system:

1. Node.js and NPM for installing PhantomJS.
2. Composer for installing Behat and related packages.

Then, install the PHP and JS components:

1. composer install
2. npm install

Usage

• Share the /web/ folder in a local web server at http://localhost:8000
  • If you are running PHP 5.4 or above, the easiest way to do this is with the built-in PHP web server:
    • In a terminal window, starting from the project root, run cd web
    • Then run php -S localhost:8000 -- keep this command running in this terminal, and run all commands below in a different terminal.
    • If you like, go to http://localhost:8000 and confirm you can see the message "Yes, JavaScript is running!"
  • If you need to serve it at an address other than http://localhost:8000, edit behat.yml and change the base_url to the address the folder is visible at.
• Start up the PhantomJS headless browser
  • In a terminal window, starting from the project root, run node_modules/phantomjs/bin/phantomjs --webdriver=8643
• Run the Behat test
  • In a third terminal, starting from the project root, run vendor/bin/behat
  • The output should confirm that all steps pass, including the one that says "Then I should see "Yes, JavaScript is running!""

License

This application is open-sourced under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more details.