make cakephp unit testing useable

lib..ti_test_case.php

<?php

App::import('Lib', 'TiTestFixture');

/**
 * do some magic to make testing more fun
 * @author Florian Staudacher
 */
abstract class TiTestCase extends CakeTestCase {

  /**
   * dummy content, in order for the overwritten _loadFixtures to be called
   * by the parent class
   */
  var $fixtures = array("i am not empty");

  /**
   * per default, this class will initialize fixturized tables for all
   * known models. This will take quite some time, so that behavior can be
   * disabled by setting this to false.
   */
  var $initDb;

  /**
   * overwrite this sh*t.
   * ... to always have a nice, clean database for testing
   */
  function _loadFixtures() {

    // skip loading fixtures
    if( $this->initDb === false ) return;

    $modelClasses = App::objects('model');
    $fixtureModels = array();
    // get ALL THE MODELS
    foreach($modelClasses as $model) {
      App::import('Model', $model);
      $vars = get_class_vars($model);

      // every model with a table will be fixturized
      if( $vars['useTable'] !== false ) {
        array_push($fixtureModels, $model);
      }
    }

    // generate on-the-fly default fixtures for the models
    foreach($fixtureModels as $model) {
      $this->_fixtures['app.'.Inflector::tableize($model)] = new TiTestFixture($this->db);
      $fix = $this->_fixtures['app.'.Inflector::tableize($model)];
      $fix->name = $model;
      $fix->import = array('model' => $model);
      $fix->records = array();
      $fix->init();
      $this->_fixtureClassMap[$model] = 'app.'.Inflector::tableize($model);

    }

    //pr($this->_fixtures);
    //pr($this->_fixtureClassMap);
  }

}
?>

lib..ti_test_fixture.php

<?php

/**
 * do some magic to make testing more fun
 * @author Florian Staudacher
 */
class TiTestFixture extends CakeTestFixture {

  /**
   * we have to wait for some vars to be assigned manually, before actually
   * doing what would be in the constructor
   */
  function __construct() {
    // noop
  }

  function init() {
    // copied from the parent::__constructor
    App::import('Model', 'CakeSchema');
    $this->Schema = new CakeSchema(array('name' => 'TestSuite', 'connection' => 'test_suite'));

    parent::init();
  }

  /**
   * maps enum fields in the database to strings with a length of 64.
   * otherwise cakephp's testing framework won't stop complaining...
   */
  function create(&$db) {
    foreach($this->fields as $name => &$field) {
      if( strstr($field['type'], "enum") !== false ) {
        $field['type'] = 'string';
        $field['length'] = 64;
      }
    }
    parent::create($db);
  }
}

?>

tests..cases..models..example.test.php

<?php

/**
 * this file is part of the test suite
 * @author Florian Staudacher
 */

App::import('Lib', 'TiTestCase');

class AppTestCase extends TiTestCase {

  // do your testing here

}
?>