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Codeception with Selenium: Tutorial to Run Your First Test on LambdaTest


In this topic, you will learn how to configure and run your PHP automation testing scripts on LambdaTest Selenium cloud platform using PHP framework Codeception.

Objective


By the end of this topic, you will be able to:

  1. Set up an environment for testing your locally hosted web pages using Codeception automation testing.
  2. Understand and configure the core capabilities required for your Selenium test suite.
  3. Test your locally hosted pages on LambdaTest platform.
  4. Explore advanced features of LambdaTest.

Note: All the code samples in this documentation can be found in the Codeception LambdaTest Repository on GitHub. You can either download or clone the repository to quickly run your tests.

Prerequisites For Running Codeception With Selenium


Before you begin automation testing with Selenium and Codeception, you would need to:

  • Make sure that you have the latest PHP installed on your system. You can download and install PHP using following commands in the terminal:

    • MacOS: Previous versions of MacOS have PHP installed by default. But for the latest MacOS versions starting with Monterey, PHP has to be downloaded and installed manually by using below commands:
    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
    brew install php
    • Windows:
    sudo apt-get install curl libcurl3 libcurl3-dev php

    Note: For Windows, you can download PHP from here. Also, refer to this documentation for ensuring the accessibility of PHP through Command Prompt(cmd).

  • Download composer in the project directory (Linux/MacOS, Windows).

    Note: To use the composer command directly, it either should have been downloaded in the project directory or should be accessible globally which can be done by the command below:

    mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Installing Selenium Dependencies and Tutorial Repo

Step 1: Clone the LambdaTest’s codeception-selenium-sample repository and navigate to the code directory as shown below:

git clone https://github.com/LambdaTest/codeception-selenium-sample
cd codeception-selenium-sample

Step 2: Install the composer dependencies in the current project directory using the command below:

composer install

Setting Up Your Authentication

Make sure you have your LambdaTest credentials with you to run test automation scripts on LambdaTest Selenium Grid. You can obtain these credentials from the LambdaTest Automation Dashboard or through LambdaTest Profile.

Step 3: Set LambdaTest Username and Access Key in environment variables.

  • For Linux/macOS:
    export LT_USERNAME="YOUR_USERNAME" export LT_ACCESS_KEY="YOUR ACCESS KEY"
  • For Windows:
    set LT_USERNAME="YOUR_USERNAME" set LT_ACCESS_KEY="YOUR ACCESS KEY"

Run Your First Test


Sample Test with Codeception

Below is a sample acceptance test through PHP.

<?php
class FirstCest
{
public function frontpageWorks(AcceptanceTester $I)
{
sleep(5);
$I->amOnPage('/sample-todo-app');
sleep(2);
$I->checkOption('/html/body/div/div/div/ul/li[4]/input');
sleep(2);
$I->checkOption('/html/body/div/div/div/ul/li[5]/input');
}
}

Configuration of Your Test Capabilities

Step 4: In the test script, you need to update your test capabilities. Notice the declaration of class name “AcceptanceTester”. We used this class to specify test configuration, port number, browser name, browser version and other desired capabilities.

# Codeception Test Suite Configuration
#
# Suite for acceptance tests.
# Perform tests in browser using the WebDriver or PhpBrowser.
# If you need both WebDriver and PHPBrowser tests - create a separate suite.

class_name: AcceptanceTester
modules:
enabled:
- WebDriver:
url: 'https://lambdatest.github.io/sample-todo-app/'
host: '{username}:{token}@hub.lambdatest.com' #provide your LambdaTest credentials
port: 80
browser: chrome

capabilities:
name: 'Codeception Example'
build: '1.0'
browserName: 'Chrome' # request the latest version of chrome
platform: 'ANY'
version: '71.0'
tunnel: false # sets tunnel value to true for routing traffic through your local machine

Note: You can generate capabilities for your test requirements with the help of our inbuilt Capabilities Generator tool.

Executing the Test

Step 5: The tests can be executed in the terminal using the following command:

./vendor/bin/codecept run --steps

Your test results would be displayed on the test console (or command-line interface if you are using terminal/cmd) and on LambdaTest automation dashboard. LambdaTest Automation Dashboard will help you view all your text logs, screenshots and video recording for your entire automation tests.

Testing Locally Hosted or Privately Hosted Projects


You can test your locally hosted or privately hosted projects with LambdaTest Selenium grid cloud using LambdaTest Tunnel app. All you would have to do is set up an SSH tunnel using LambdaTest Tunnel app and pass toggle tunnel = True via desired capabilities. LambdaTest Tunnel establishes a secure SSH protocol based tunnel that allows you in testing your locally hosted or privately hosted pages, even before they are made live.

Refer our LambdaTest Tunnel documentation for more information.

Here’s how you can establish LambdaTest Tunnel.

Download the binary file of:

Open command prompt and navigate to the binary folder.

Run the following command:

LT --user {user’s login email} --key {user’s access key}

So if your user name is lambdatest@example.com and key is 123456, the command would be:

LT --user lambdatest@example.com --key 123456

Once you are able to connect LambdaTest Tunnel successfully, you would just have to pass on to set the tunnel value to true by adding the following line in your config files: Tunnel Capabilities

tunnel: true