Php – Best practices to test protected methods with PHPUnit

PHPphpunitunit testing

I found the discussion on Do you test private method informative.

I have decided, that in some classes, I want to have protected methods, but test them.
Some of these methods are static and short. Because most of the public methods make use of them, I will probably be able to safely remove the tests later. But for starting with a TDD approach and avoid debugging, I really want to test them.

I thought of the following:

Method Object as adviced in an answer seems to be overkill for this.
Start with public methods and when code coverage is given by higher level tests, turn them protected and remove the tests.
Inherit a class with a testable interface making protected methods public

Which is best practice? Is there anything else?

It seems, that JUnit automatically changes protected methods to be public, but I did not have a deeper look at it. PHP does not allow this via reflection.

Best Answer

If you're using PHP5 (>= 5.3.2) with PHPUnit, you can test your private and protected methods by using reflection to set them to be public prior to running your tests:

protected static function getMethod($name) {
  $class = new ReflectionClass('MyClass');
  $method = $class->getMethod($name);
  $method->setAccessible(true);
  return $method;
}

public function testFoo() {
  $foo = self::getMethod('foo');
  $obj = new MyClass();
  $foo->invokeArgs($obj, array(...));
  ...
}

Related Solutions

Java – How to test a class that has private methods, fields or inner classes

Update:

Some 10 years later perhaps the best way to test a private method, or any inaccessible member, is via @Jailbreak from the Manifold framework.
@Jailbreak Foo foo = new Foo();
// Direct, *type-safe* access to *all* foo's members
foo.privateMethod(x, y, z);
foo.privateField = value;
This way your code remains type-safe and readable. No design compromises, no overexposing methods and fields for the sake of tests.

If you have somewhat of a legacy Java application, and you're not allowed to change the visibility of your methods, the best way to test private methods is to use reflection.

Internally we're using helpers to get/set private and private static variables as well as invoke private and private static methods. The following patterns will let you do pretty much anything related to the private methods and fields. Of course, you can't change private static final variables through reflection.

Method method = TargetClass.getDeclaredMethod(methodName, argClasses);
method.setAccessible(true);
return method.invoke(targetObject, argObjects);

And for fields:

Field field = TargetClass.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
field.setAccessible(true);
field.set(object, value);

Notes:
1. TargetClass.getDeclaredMethod(methodName, argClasses) lets you look into private methods. The same thing applies for getDeclaredField.
2. The setAccessible(true) is required to play around with privates.

Ruby – What’s the best way to unit test protected & private methods in Ruby

You can bypass encapsulation with the send method:

myobject.send(:method_name, args)

This is a 'feature' of Ruby. :)

There was internal debate during Ruby 1.9 development which considered having send respect privacy and send! ignore it, but in the end nothing changed in Ruby 1.9. Ignore the comments below discussing send! and breaking things.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Java – How to test a class that has private methods, fields or inner classes

Ruby – What’s the best way to unit test protected & private methods in Ruby

Related Topic