Version 4 supported
This version of Silverstripe CMS is still supported though will not receive any additional features. Go to documentation for the most recent stable version.

Upgrading to PHPUnit 9.5 for PHP8 support

Unit and integration testing in Silverstripe CMS is done with the SapphireTest class which is a wrapper on top of the PHPUnit TestCase class. Silverstripe CMS 4.9 and earlier used a forked version of PHPUnit 5.7 which was not compatible with PHP 8.

Silverstripe CMS 4.10 onward supports PHPUnit 9.5 allowing projects to use PHP 8.

Dual support for PHPUnit 5.7 and PHPUnit 9.5

SapphireTest has dual support for both PHPUnit 5.7 and PHPUnit 9.5. This allows existing projects to upgrade to Silverstripe CMS 4.10 without breaking their test suite; however they will be limited to PHP 7.3 and PHP 7.4.

Support for PHPUnit 5.7 will continue until approximately January 2023 when PHPUnit 5.7 support will be dropped.

PHPUnit versions 6.x, 7.x and 8.x are NOT supported.

How to enable support for PHPUnit 9.5

Replace references to "sminnee/phphunit": "5.7"with "phpunit/phpunit": "^9.5" in the "require-dev" section of composer.json and run composer update.

If you are upgrading a module rather than a website, ensure there's a specific requirement for silverstripe/framework: ^4.10 as Silverstripe CMS 4.9 and earlier are not compatible with PHPUnit 9.

If the "require" block in composer.json does not have a requirement for "silverstripe/framework", you can put the requirement in "require-dev" so that it's only required when running CI or running unit tests locally. This will allow older versions of Silverstripe CMS to use the latest version of your module.

Common changes to make to your unit-test suites

These are some common adjustments that need to be made to unit tests so they're compatible with the PHPUnit 9.5 API:

  • setUp() and tearDown() now require the :void return type e.g. setUp(): void
  • assertContains() and assertNotContains() no longer accept strings so update to assertStringContainsString() and assertStringNotContainsString()
  • assertInternalType('%Type%') needs to be changed to assertIs%Type%() e.g. assertIsInt() - full list
  • @expectedException style annotations are changed to PHP functions
  • Wrapping <testsuite> elements with a <testsuites> element in phpunit.xml / phpunit.xml.dist

You see the full list of PHPUnit changes in the announcements section of the PHPUnit.de website.

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