You can use Behat to describe anything, that you can describe in business logic. It’s tools, gui applications, web applications. The most interesting part is web applications. First, behavioral testing already exists in the web world - it’s called functional or acceptance testing. Almost all popular frameworks and languages provide functional testing tools. Today we’ll talk about how to use Behat for functional testing of web applications. Mink is a tool exactly for that and this extension provides integration for it.
Basically, MinkExtension is an integration layer between Behat 3.0+ and Mink 1.4+ and it provides:
- Additional services for Behat (
Mink
,Sessions
,Drivers
). Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkAwareContext
which provides aMink
instance for your contexts.- Base
Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext
context which provides base step definitions and hooks for your contexts or subcontexts. Or it could be even used as context on its own.
This extension requires:
- Behat 3.0+
- Mink 1.4+
The easiest way to keep your suite updated is to use Composer:
Install with composer:
$ composer require --dev behat/mink-extension
Activate the extension by specifying its class in your
behat.yml
:# behat.yml default: # ... extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: base_url: 'http://example.com' sessions: default: goutte: ~
After installing the extension, there are 4 usage options available:
Extending
Behat\MinkExtension\Context\RawMinkContext
in your feature suite. This will give you the ability to use a preconfigured Mink instance with some convenience methods:getSession($name = null)
assertSession($name = null)
RawMinkContext
doesn't provide any hooks or definitions, so you can inherit from it in as many contexts as you want - you'll never getRedundantStepException
.Extending
Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext
with one of your contexts. Exactly like the previous option, but also provides lots of predefined step definitions out of the box. As this context provides step definitions and hooks, you can use it only once inside your feature context tree.<?php use Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext; class FeatureContext extends MinkContext { /** * @Then /^I wait for the suggestion box to appear$/ */ public function iWaitForTheSuggestionBoxToAppear() { $this->getSession()->wait(5000, "$('.suggestions-results').children().length > 0"); } }
Warning
Keep in mind, that you can not have multiple step definitions with the same regex. It will cause a
RedundantException
. So, you can inherit fromMinkContext
only with one of your context/subcontext classes.Adding
Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext
as a context in your suite. Exactly like the previous option, but gives you the ability to keep your main context class clean.default: suites: my_suite: contexts: - FeatureContext - Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext
Note
Keep in mind, that you can not have multiple step definitions with the same regex. It will cause a
RedundantException
. So, you can inherit fromMinkContext
only with one of your context/subcontext classes.Implementing
Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkAwareContext
with your context.
There are common things between these methods. In each of those, the target context will implement
setMink(Mink $mink)
and setMinkParameters(array $parameters)
methods. Those methods would
be automatically called immediately after each context creation before each scenario. And
this $mink
instance will be preconfigured based on the settings you've provided in your
behat.yml
.
MinkExtension comes with a flexible configuration system, that gives you the ability to configure Mink inside Behat to fulfil all your needs.
You can register as many Mink sessions as you want. For each session, you will need to choose the driver you want to use.
default:
extensions:
Behat\MinkExtension:
sessions:
first_session:
selenium2: ~
second_session:
goutte: ~
third_session:
selenium2: ~
MinkExtension will set the default Mink session for each scenario based on
the configuration settings default_session
and javascript_session
and on scenario tags:
- A scenario tagged with
@mink:foo
will usefoo
as its default session; - A scenario tagged with
@javascript
will use the javascript session as its default session; - Other scenarios will use the default session.
The default session and the default javascript session can also be configured for each suite:
default:
suites:
first:
mink_session: foo
mink_javascript_session: sahi
If it is not configured explicitly, the javascript session is set to the first
session using a javascript driver in the order of the configuration (it would
be first_session
in the example above as selenium2
supports Javascript).
If it is not configured explicitly, the default session is set to the first
session using a non-javascript driver if any, or to the first javascript session
otherwise (it would be second_session
above as goutte
does not support
javascript).
First of all, there are drivers enabling configuration. MinkExtension comes with support for 7 drivers out of the box:
GoutteDriver
- headless driver without JavaScript support. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: goutte: ~
If you use Behat/Mink/Goutte to test your application, and want to test an application secured with HTTPS, but with a self-signed certificate, you can use the following parameters to avoid the validation error triggered by Guzzle:
For
Guzzle 4
or later:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: goutte: guzzle_parameters: verify: false
For
Guzzle 3
or earlier:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: goutte: guzzle_parameters: ssl.certificate_authority: false
Selenium2Driver
- javascript driver. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: selenium2: ~
SauceLabsDriver
- special flavor of the Selenium2Driver configured to use the selenium2 hosted installation of saucelabs.com. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: sauce_labs: ~
BrowserStackDriver
- special flavor of the Selenium2Driver configured to use the selenium2 hosted installation of browserstack.com. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: browser_stack: ~
SeleniumDriver
- javascript driver. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: selenium: ~
SahiDriver
- javascript driver. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: my_session: sahi: ~
ZombieDriver
- zombie.js javascript headless driver. In order to use it, modify yourbehat.yml
profile:default: extensions: Behat\MinkExtension: sessions: default: zombie: # Specify the path to the node_modules directory. node_modules_path: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/
Note
The phar version of Mink comes bundled with all 5 drivers and you don't need to do anything except enabling them in order to use them.
But if you're using Composer, you need to install drivers that you need first:
- GoutteDriver -
behat/mink-goutte-driver
- SeleniumDriver -
behat/mink-selenium-driver
- Selenium2Driver (also used for SauceLabs and BrowserStack) -
behat/mink-selenium2-driver
- SahiDriver -
behat/mink-sahi-driver
- ZombieDriver -
behat/mink-zombie-driver
Note
All drivers share the same API, which means that you could use multiple drivers for the same suite - whichever one fits your needs for concrete scenarios. Don't try to stick to a single driver as there's simply no universal solution - every driver has its pros and cons.
There's other useful parameters, that you can use to configure your suite:
base_url
- if you're using relative paths in your*.feature
files (and you should), then this option will define which url to use as a basename for them.files_path
- there's a special step definition for file upload inputs usage. You can use relative paths in those steps.files_path
defines the base path in which Mink should search for those relative files.show_cmd
- there's a special definition in MinkExtension, that saves the currently opened page into a temporary file and opens it with some browser utility (for debugging). This option defines the command to be used for opening. For example:show_cmd: 'firefox %s'
.show_tmp_dir
- the temporary folder used to show the opened page (defaults to the system temp dir)show_auto
- Whether the opened page should be shown automatically when a step fails.browser_name
- meta-option, that defines which browser to use for Sahi, Selenium and Selenium2 drivers.default_session
- defines the default session (driver) to be used for all untagged scenarios. This could be any enabled session name.javascript_session
- defines the javascript session (driver) (the one, which will be used for@javascript
tagged scenarios). This could be any enabled session name.mink_loader
- path to a file loaded to make Mink available (useful when using the PHAR archive for Mink, useless when using Composer)