Re: [Discussion] Sandbox API

> On Aug 6, 2024, at 2:09 AM, Nick Lockheart <lists@ageofdream.com> wrote: > > Sand Box: A first class API that allows unit testing of code with mocks > and stubs of other classes or functions, without the need to modify the > class under test. > > This is an initial idea of how a Sand Box API could work: > > $oSandbox = new SPLSandBox(); > > $oSandbox->MockFunction('\mocks\fopen','\fopen'); > $oSandbox->MockFunction('\mocks\fread','\fread'); > $oSandbox->MockFunction('\mocks\fwrite','\fwrite'); > $oSandbox->MockFunction('\mocks\fclose','\fclose'); > > $oFileManager = $oSandbox->GetInstance('MyFileManager'); > > $oFileManager->WriteFile('/path/to/file.txt'); On the surface, this sounds like a good idea. This is already possible to do in userland, with a few edge-cases. The edge-cases are: 1. Anything that uses self::class or similar will break if it expects MyFileManager to be returned instead of something like MyFileManager_4k2x8j. 2. Anything that expects a static variable in MyFileManager to have a pre-existing value set but an earlier use of MyFileManager will not work as expected. However, expecting that would be against testing best practices so I don't see this as a real concern given your use-case. OTOH, a userland implementation will also not be very performant when compared to a potential PHP core implementation, making it less than ideal for testing. However, doing a userland implementation would be a good proof-of-concept, allow others to try it, allow others to contribute to the exact syntax and semantics, and finally a userland implementation could reveal any potential hidden issues in the design before moving on to a proper implementation in C for PHP core. -Mike P.S. If you are unfamiliar with how to implement in userland you can use the same techniques I used in my proof-of-concept for Userland Packages: https://github.com/mikeschinkel/userland-packages. If that link is not enough and you instead want to ask specific questions about how to implement in PHP, feel free to contact me off-list.