🔍 Pest: A New Approach to Write Testable PHP Code for Web Developers

Hello, fellow developers 👋! Today, we're going to dive into Pest, an elegant PHP testing framework with a clean and expressive syntax. Let's see how we can enhance our PHP code testing process using Pest.

But first, let's make sure we have Pest installed!

📦 Installation & Set-up

Pest is super easy to install. The first thing we need to do is run the Pest installer using composer. Here is the install command:

composer require pestphp/pest --dev

This will add Pest as a development dependency in your PHP project.

Once we have Pest installed, we can start writing tests!

💻 Writing Our First Test!

Let's write our first test, shall we? All you need to do is create a new *.pest.php file inside your tests directory. Let's create a file called ExampleTest.pest.php:

it('has welcome page', function () {
    $response = get('/');
    $response->assertOk();
});

In this test, we're making a GET request to the homepage (at '/') of our application, and then asserting that the response is OK (HTTP status code 200).

That's how easy it is to write tests with Pest! You'll end up writing less boilerplate, and more actual tests. 🎉

🏃 Running The Test

To run your tests, you just have to use the pest command in your terminal:

./vendor/bin/pest

Pest will automatically find your *.pest.php files and run the tests within them. And there you have it! You're now using Pest to write more expressive tests for your PHP applications. 🚀

I hope this introduction to Pest has been helpful and enticing. Give it a spin on your next PHP project, I'm sure you'll love it. Keep in mind that technologies move fast though, so don't forget to always consult the latest documentation.

Happy coding, and test away! 🥳

References:

• Pest official website: https://pestphp.com/
• Pest on Github: https://github.com/pestphp/pest

Note: Reference links might be outdated as technology evolves quickly.