Laravel and Selenium with Chrome using Codeception

So, I've been trying for the longest time to get Laravel Tests to work with Selenium and Chrome. I tried checking out the Laravel Integrated package and in the repo it says that much of the Laravel Integrated package has been included in Laravel core:

https://github.com/laracasts/Integrated

But I have been unsuccessful on integrating Selenium with my tests. So instead I went with Codeception. http://codeception.com

Codeception has some amazing documentation and they even have a section that describes how to install it for laravel: http://codeception.com/for/laravel

So, here's what I did after going through the quick start guide.

1. Create a simple test file
2. Download selenium and chromedriver
3. Start selenium with chromedriver
4. Run our test

 

1. Create a simple test file

I created a new file located in 'tests/acceptance/HomeRouteCept.php', which contained the following small bit of code:

<?php
<p>$I = new AcceptanceTester($scenario);
$I->wantTo('Testing out the homepage route');
$I->amOnPage('/');

2. Download selenium and chromedriver

Next we need to download the Selenium Server file located at: http://www.seleniumhq.org/download/

Then, you will also need to download the chromedriver located at: http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html (choose the latest folder and download the driver)

3. Start selenium with chromedriver

In order to start selenium we would typically write the following command:

java -jar selenium-server.jar

But if you get a command that it does not recognize the 'java' command you will need to download java from https://www.java.com/en/download/, you may also need to add it to your PATH file, which is explained here http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/165022/problem-with-installing-java-java-command-not-found

After it recognizes the command we should be able run the following command to start Selenium Server:

java -jar selenium-server.jar

But that's not all.

We also want to be able to run it with the chromedriver so we will use the following command instead:

java -Dwebdriver.chrome.driver=./chromedriver -jar selenium-server.jar

And now that the server is running. Let's run our test.

4. Run our test

Next, navigate to your terminal and run the following command inside of your laravel app:

vendor/bin/codecept run

And low and behold, you'll see chrome open up and open your home route. Then inside of your terminal you will get a green pass message that your tests have run successful!

Now I can get a real time play of what my tests are doing. Now, you will probably want to use a headless browser like phantonjs when running these tests with continuous deployment apps and you could even run Phantomjs browser on your machine when you don't want it to open up in chrome.

But, if there is a way to get Laravel tests running with chrome and selenium, please feel free to post your solution below.

Thanks!