Recently, I've been working on projects with Behat tests. There are hundreds of definitions that can be used in feature file scenarios.
I accidentally noticed that one of the definitions is not used at all and could be removed. This would result in less code to maintain, less code to read, and less code to upgrade.
But I thought, "That's weird." Why did not Behat report this definition in our CI? Oh, because there is no Behat static analysis report out of the box. Let's fix that.
Behat definitions are marked with annotations:
/**
* @When I do something
*/
public function doSomething(): void
{
//...
}
...or with PHP 8.0 attributes:
use Behat\Step\Then;
#[Then('I see light')]
public function seeTheLight(): void
{
//...
}
These definitions can be used in *.feature files:
Given I do something
Then I see light
But as the project develops, there feature files can change:
Given I do something
-Then I see light
+Then I see green
Now we should remove the "I see light" definition because it's not used anymore. But we often focus on business code and testing and don't have time to check this.
This is ideal work for static analysis!
Why static analysis? We could have a Behat extension, that would run tests, compare used definitions, and report issues in the end. The problem is that Behat tests are extremely slow and we don't want to bind the tool with a specific Behat version.
We're lazy. We want to run a single command on any Behat version and get fast reliable feedback within a couple of seconds.
The process is simple:
*.feature files and check if the definition is still usedChecking static, named, and regex masks from 100 *Feature files
==============================================================
Found 1036 masks:
* 747 exact
* 106 /regex/
* 181 :named
1036/1036 [▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓] 100%
the product price is :value
tests/Behat/ProductContext.php
/^I submit order form and see payment page$/
tests/Behat/OrderContext.php
[ERROR] Found 2 unused definitions
That's it! We can now remove the unused definitions and keep the codebase clean.
Add this command to your CI and you'll never have to worry about unused Behat definitions again. "What command?" you ask.
Instead of adding yet another CLI tool you have to update, we made it part of Rector Swiss Knife.
It's a tool that can do many useful things, but it's not a jack of all trades. It's a master of one - maintainable code.
composer require rector/swiss-knife --dev
It's downgraded to PHP 7.2, so even older projects can use it.
To run static analysis on your Behat definitions, just provide a directory with your Behat definitions and feature files:
vendor/bin/swiss-knife behastan tests
That's it!
Happy coding!
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