How to exclude file from PHPUnit test suite in xml config?

Question

I have following, very simple, XML config for PHPUnit:

Answer 1

There are a number of ways to not run a particular test - putting it into a blacklist so it's never run may not be the way - as changing it means editing the blacklist, and you'll often endup bouncing it in and out of version control.

There are several other ways that may be more appropriate:

If a test is not yet ready to run:

$this->markTestIncomplete('This test has not been implemented yet.');

If there's an outside reason it should not be run, skip it:

if (!extension_loaded('mysqli')) {
    $this->markTestSkipped('The MySQLi extension is not available.');
}

You can also put that into the setUp() function, so it will skip all the tests in a test-class.

You can make a test dependant on a previous one succeeding:

public function testEmpty()
{
    $stack = array();
    $this->assertTrue(empty($stack));
    return $stack;   // also sends this variable to any following tests - if this worked
}
/**
 * only runs if testEmpty() passed
 *
 * @depends testEmpty
 */
public function testPush(array $stack)
{
}

The @group -name- annotation is one of the best ways to specifically stop, or run one group of tests

/**
 * @group database
 * @group remoteTasks
 */
public function testSomething()
{
}

testSomething() is now in two groups, and if either is added on the command line (or in the config.xml) --exclude-group parameter. it won't be run. Likewise, you could run only tests that belong to a particular group - say named after a feature, or bug report.