moodle-behat-testing

Moodle Behat Testing

Overview

Behat drives a real browser against a dedicated Moodle test site. Features live in <plugin>/tests/behat/*.feature. Custom steps go in tests/behat/behat_<component>.php extending behat_base. Moodle provides hundreds of built-in steps (login, course creation, navigation).

When to Use

• Writing end-to-end / acceptance tests
• Testing JavaScript-driven UI (drag-drop, modals, AJAX)
• Reproducing bugs that need full request cycle + cookies + session
• Adding scenarios to a plugin's regression suite

Skip when: writing unit tests for business logic — use moodle-phpunit-testing.

First-time setup

# config.php additions:
$CFG->behat_wwwroot   = 'http://localhost:8000';
$CFG->behat_dataroot  = '/var/moodledata_behat';
$CFG->behat_prefix    = 'beh_';

# Initialize test site:
php admin/tool/behat/cli/init.php

# Install + start a Selenium-compatible driver (one of):
docker run -d -p 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-chrome:latest
# or chromedriver, geckodriver

# Run:
vendor/bin/behat --config /var/moodledata_behat/behat/behat.yml \
  --tags @local_example

Feature file skeleton

@local_example @javascript
Feature: Mark attendance
  In order to track presence
  As a teacher
  I need to mark students present

  Background:
    Given the following "courses" exist:
      | fullname | shortname |
      | Maths    | M101      |
    And the following "users" exist:
      | username | firstname | lastname |
      | teacher1 | Tina      | Teach    |
      | student1 | Sam       | Student  |
    And the following "course enrolments" exist:
      | user     | course | role           |
      | teacher1 | M101   | editingteacher |
      | student1 | M101   | student        |

  Scenario: Teacher marks a student present
    Given I log in as "teacher1"
    And I am on "Maths" course homepage
    When I follow "Attendance"
    And I click on "Mark present" "button" in the "Sam Student" "table_row"
    Then I should see "1 present" in the "Today" "fieldset"