Behat (BDD) – Basics and Libraries

Behat:

Allows writing clear and human readable tests as it is written in Gherkin (also mentioned in my previous blog) which is a business-readable domain specific language following defined patterns (usually Given-When-Then pattern of variation). Behat tests are written in plain English (or other 67 supported language) phrases which are then combined into human readable scenarios. The tests are understandable by almost anyone, whether you are person without any programming skills up to a full-time developer. Behat is the core of the framework and it is capable to test various system types such as REST APIs, terminal commands and headless testing, however for testing web pages we require controllers and emulators such as Mink, Goutte, Selenium and various web drivers for desired browsers.

Behat is usually installed through Composer a dependency manager for PHP, it will automatically download latest version of Behat and for constant later updates of libraries.

Mink:

Is an open source browser controller for web applications, written in PHP 5.3. and it is required for Behat to simulate real time testing. Mink functions as the connector between Behat and browser emulators, and provides a consistent testing API.

Goutte:

The most common used emulators are Goutte (doesn’t support JavaScript but fast execution) or Selenium with addition of leading browser drivers (FireFox, Chrome, IE/Edge) which will provide a full-featured browsers for testing (but their execution will run slower than Goutte).

Selenium:

Is a set of different software tools, each with a different approach to supporting test automation. Its diversity gives unique appliance for usage in all leading programming languages and the most used package for automated testing.