phpunit - testing is painfully slow

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am diving deeper and deeper in the world of unit testing.

One issue I encountered, and this is where I would like feedback, is when one runs multiple test suites, maybe it is just me but I need to use the parameter --process-isolation for my tests to pass. I can run any of my suites individually without a problem, but running the 6-7 suites I have so far with 180 assertions spread between them fails if I run without --process-isolation. The problem is that using this parameter makes the test run last for 35 mins, versus the usual 2.5 minutes. That's a loooong wait.

The problem is related to using mocked DI containers for specific tests and containers are not properly re-initialised when tests suites are running chained. Static properties set on DI-Container to test for expected failures make the tests in following suite fail. The container has a parameter that can hold contained object in a static var, to return the same instance at every call. A singleton in disguise. And this runs fine on application level, it's just a nuisance for testing.

I could avoid that container parameter and code the application to not use static properties, but avoiding a useful language construct for the sake of a methodology seems like overkill.

Maybe I am doing something wrong (I sure hope so!) but I have the impression if one wants to run tests with the SUT in a clean state for every test, there is no getting around using --process-isolation. This makes testing very time consuming and takes the joy out of it a little bit. I have bypassed the issue somewhat by running suites and tests individually when I am coding, and running the suite in background before major commits.

Is what I am experiencing normal, and is there a way to counter this? How do you testers out there ensure testing time is reasonable? How are statics handled so as to not influence testing?

Any insight appreciated/comment appreciated.