Lesson 5 - PHP Testing - Xdebug and coverage reports
In the previous lesson, PHPUnit DataProvider and BestPractices, we learned how to use the
@dataProvider annotation, to test protected methods and best
practices. Today, the Xdebug tool is waiting for us, as well as generating Code
Coverage reports, which tell us how large is the part of our application the
tests cover, and even how well our code is written.
Xdebug
If you started programming in some compiled desktop language (Pascal / C / C++ / Delphi) in the past, you certainly miss a debugger in PHP. In the development environment, we usually had an option to place break points into the program. On these lines, the program stopped and returned focus to the IDE. At this time, we could see the contents of the variables, the memory usage, we could step through the program and watch why it doesn't do what we need. After switching to the web, this tool ceases to work because we call PHP via a request through the web browser and the IDE is then a little out of the process. Or isn't?
Xdebug is a PHP extension that sends messages about the program running using a protocol. Smart IDEs can capture these messages and thus allow debugging the program like it was a desktop application:
Xdebug offers for example:
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