Module Phpbrowser Laravel Package

Getting Started

Install via Composer: composer require --dev codeception/module-phpbrowser. Then enable it in your acceptance.suite.yml (or equivalent suite config) under modules:

modules:
  enabled:
    - PhpBrowser:
        url: 'http://localhost'
    - \Helper\Acceptance

Start with basic HTTP requests—ideal for testing APIs or headless web apps where you don’t need JS execution. Write your first test in tests/acceptance/ using tester->amOnPage(), tester->see(), and tester->seeInCurrentUrl().

Implementation Patterns

• Functional regression suites: Use for fast, reliable HTTP assertion tests (e.g., validating HTML responses, form submissions, status codes).
• API contract testing: Pair with REST/soap helpers; tester->sendGET(), tester->seeResponseCodeIs(), and tester->seeResponseContainsJson().
• Simulated form handling: Use tester->submitForm() to POST data and verify redirects or response content.
• Parallel with other modules: Combine with WebDriver (e.g., via group configs) to fallback to headless browser only when JS interaction is needed.

Gotchas and Tips

• No JavaScript support: This is not a browser engine—tests relying on JS (SPA navigation, fetch callbacks, events) will fail silently or behave unexpectedly. Use WebDriver for JS-dependent flows.
• Cookie persistence: Cookies persist across requests within a single test, but not across tests unless explicitly shared. Use tester->resetCookie() in _after() for isolation.
• Relative URLs: amOnPage() interprets paths as relative to the configured url; double-check trailing slashes.
• Debugging: Enable show_request_headers/show_response_headers in config for logging; use tester->grabPageSource() for inspecting raw HTML when assertions fail.
• Timeouts: Configure timeout and curl options (e.g., follow_redirects, ssl_verify) per your app’s needs—default timeout is 30s and may lag with slow endpoints.