Simpletest: Testing echo statements?

Question

I've just been testing some PHP files with simpletest and found out thatit won't work too well with functions that actually outputs (echoes) anything.

So is there anything I can do to test functions that echoes stuff, without using ob_buffer() in PHP?

Thanks

Answer 1

Using the below completely stupid approach should give you what you want. Hey... it was fun to write :)

<?php
/**
 * The function which output you want to test.
 *
 * @param string $arg1
 * @param string $arg2
 */
function function_with_echo($arg1, $arg2) {
    $c = array();
    echo "X";
    foreach (range(0,2) as $i) {
        print $i * 2 . $arg2;
    }
    echo "Yir $arg1";
}

/**
 * Stupid, too big, ugly function that takes a function and creates a new
 * function with two underscores prefixed (__) where all echo and print
 * statements instead are collected into a temporary variable and returned. 
 * Does not work for functions that already returns something, although 
 * that could be fixed too!
 *
 * @param string $function_name
 */
function change_output_to_return($function_name) {
    $r = new ReflectionFunction($function_name);
    $lines = array_slice(
        file($r->getFileName()),
        $r->getStartLine() - 1,
        $r->getEndLine() - $r->getStartLine() + 1
    );
    $first = array_shift($lines);
    array_unshift($lines, $first, '$__temp = "";' . "\n");
    $last = array_pop($lines);
    array_push($lines, 'return $__temp;' . "\n", $last);
    $code = "<?php " . implode("", $lines);
    $echo_free_code = '';
    foreach(token_get_all($code) as $token) {
        if(is_array($token)) {
           if (in_array(token_name($token[0]), array('T_ECHO', 'T_PRINT'))) {
               $echo_free_code .= '$__temp .= ';
           } else {
               $echo_free_code .= $token[1];
           }
        } else {
            $echo_free_code .= $token;
        }
    }
    $echo_free_code = str_replace($function_name, "__$function_name", $echo_free_code);
    eval("?>$echo_free_code");
}

// Creates a function called "__function_with_echo" that returns a string
// instead of outputting it using "print" and "echo".
change_output_to_return('function_with_echo');

// Stuff contains the outputted data from "function_with_echo".
$stuff = __function_with_echo('fun', 'stuff');
var_dump($stuff);

Answer 2

If you are testing the validity of the output itself, then no. Not without an output buffer. However, you COULD test it with JavaScript. You could even test it with simpletest by passing the output back through ajax to another thread.

Round-about? Oh yeah, baby.