How to run PHP built into the web server before running the test and close it after running the test

Question

I am trying to use Behat to test BDD. When running the build on Jenkins, I would like Behat to open the PHP build on the web server and then close it after running the tests. How to do it?

Basically I need to run:

php -S localhost:8000 

In my BDD tests, I tried:

 /** * @Given /^I call "([^"]*)" with email and password$/ */ public function iCallWithPostData($uri) { echo exec('php -S localhost:8000'); $client = new Guzzle\Service\Client(); $request = $client->post('http://localhost:8000' . $uri, array(), '{"email":"a","password":"a"}')->send(); $this->response = $request->getBody(true); } 

But then when you start Behat, it gets stuck without any message.

Answer 1

I decided it myself. I created two methods. First I call the first before running the BDD tests, and the second after running the tests:

 private function _startDevelopmentServer($pidfile) { $cmd = 'cd ../../public && php -S 127.0.0.1:8027 index.php'; $outputfile = '/dev/null'; shell_exec(sprintf("%s > %s 2>&1 & echo $! >> %s", $cmd, $outputfile, $pidfile)); sleep(1); } private function _killDevelopmentServer($pidfile) { if (file_exists($pidfile)) { $pids = file($pidfile); foreach ($pids as $pid) { shell_exec('kill -9 ' . $pid); } unlink($pidfile); } } 

Answer 2

Just start the server as part of the build process. Create ant tasks that would start the server before it starts, and will kill it as soon as it ends.

I have successfully used this approach to start and stop the selenium server.