---
layout: doc
title: 08-Customization - Codeception - Documentation
---

# Customization

In this chapter we will explain how you can extend and customize file structure and test execution routines.

## One Runner for Multiple Applications

In case your project consists of several applications (frontend, admin, api) or you use Symfony2 framework with its bundles, you may be interested in having all tests for all applications (bundles) to be executed in one runner.
In this case you will get one report that covers the whole project.

Place `codeception.yml` file into root folder of your project and specify paths to other `codeception.yml` configs you want to include.

{% highlight yaml %}

include:
  - frontend/src/*Bundle
  - admin
  - api/rest
paths:
  log: log
settings:
  colors: false

{% endhighlight %}


You should also specify path to `log` directory, where the reports and logs will be stored.

<div class="alert alert-notice">
Wildcards (*) can be used to specify multiple directories at once.
</div>

### Namespaces

To avoid naming conflicts between Actor classes and Helper classes, they should be added into namespaces.
To create test suites with namespaces you can add `--namespace` option to bootstrap command.

{% highlight bash %}

$ php codecept.phar bootstrap --namespace frontend

{% endhighlight %}

This will bootstrap a new project with `namespace: frontend` parameter in `codeception.yml` file. 
Helpers will be in `frontend\Codeception\Module` namespace and Actor classes will be in `frontend` namespace.
Thus, newly generated tests will look like this:

{% highlight php %}

<?php use frontend\AcceptanceTester;
$I = new AcceptanceTester($scenario);
//...
?>

{% endhighlight %}

Once each of your applications (bundles) has its own namespace and different Helper or Actor classes, you can execute all tests in one runner. Run codeception tests as usual, using meta-config we created earlier:

{% highlight bash %}

$ php codecept.phar run

{% endhighlight %}

This will launch test suites for all 3 applications and merge the reports from all of them. Basically that would be very useful when you run your tests on Continuous Integration server and you want to get one report in JUnit and HTML format. Codecoverage report will be merged too.

If your applications uses same helpers, follow the next section of this chapter.

## Extension

Codeception has limited capabilities to extend its core features.
Extensions are not supposed to override current functionality, but are pretty useful if you are experienced developer and you want to hook into testing flow.

By default, one `RunFailed` Extension is already enabled in your global `codeception.yml`. 
It allows you to rerun failed tests with `-g failed` option:
   
{% highlight php %}
 codecept.phar run -g failed

{% endhighlight %}

Codeception comes with bundled extensions located in `ext` directory. For instance, you can enable Logger extension to log test execution with Monolog

{% highlight yaml %}

extensions:
    enabled:
        - Codeception\Extension\RunFailed # default extension
        - Codeception\Extension\Logger # enabled extension
    config:
        Codeception\Extension\Logger:
            max_files: 5 # logger configuration

{% endhighlight %}

But what are extensions, anyway? Basically speaking, Extensions are nothing more then event listeners based on [Symfony Event Dispatcher](http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/event_dispatcher/introduction.html) component.

Here are the events and event classes. The events are listed in order they happen during execution. Each event has a corresponding class, which is passed to listener, and contains specific objects.

### Events

|    Event             |     When?                               | What contains?
|:--------------------:| --------------------------------------- | --------------------------:
| `suite.before`       | Before suite is executed                | [Suite, Settings](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/SuiteEvent.php)
| `test.start`         | Before test is executed                 | [Test](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/TestEvent.php)
| `test.before`        | At the very beginning of test execution | [Codeception Test](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/TestEvent.php)
| `step.before`        | Before step                             | [Step](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/StepEvent.php)
| `step.after`         | After step                              | [Step](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/StepEvent.php)
| `step.fail`          | After failed step                       | [Step](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/StepEvent.php)
| `test.fail`          | After failed test                       | [Test, Fail](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/FailEvent.php)
| `test.error`         | After test ended with error             | [Test, Fail](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/FailEvent.php)
| `test.incomplete`    | After executing incomplete test         | [Test, Fail](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/FailEvent.php)
| `test.skipped`       | After executing skipped test            | [Test, Fail](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/FailEvent.php)
| `test.success`       | After executing successful test         | [Test](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/TestEvent.php)
| `test.after`         | At the end of test execution            | [Codeception Test](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/TestEvent.php)
| `test.end`           | After test execution                    | [Test](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/TestEvent.php)
| `suite.after`        | After suite was executed                | [Suite, Result, Settings](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/SuiteEvent.php)
| `test.fail.print`    | When test fails are printed             | [Test, Fail](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/FailEvent.php)
| `result.print.after` | After result was printed                | [Result, Printer](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/blob/master/src/Codeception/Event/PrintResultEvent.php)

There may be a confusion between `test.start`/`test.before` and `test.after`/`test.end`. Start/end events are triggered by PHPUnit itself. But before/after events are triggered by Codeception. Thus, when you have classical PHPUnit test (extended from `PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase`), before/after events won't be triggered for them. On `test.before` event you can mark test as skipped or incomplete, which is not possible in `test.start`. You can learn more from [Codeception internal event listeners](https://github.com/Codeception/Codeception/tree/master/src/Codeception/Subscriber).

The extension class itself is inherited from `Codeception\Extension`.

{% highlight php %}

<?php
class MyCustomExtension extends \Codeception\Extension
{
    // list events to listen to
    public static $events = array(
        'suite.after' => 'afterSuite',
        'test.before' => 'beforeTest',
        'step.before' => 'beforeStep',
        'test.fail' => 'testFailed',
        'result.print.after' => 'print',
    );

    // methods that handle events

    public function afterSuite(\Codeception\Event\SuiteEvent $e) {}

    public function beforeTest(\Codeception\Event\TestEvent $e) {}

    public function beforeStep(\Codeception\Event\StepEvent $e) {}

    public function testFailed(\Codeception\Event\FailEvent $e) {}

    public function print(\Codeception\Event\PrintResultEvent $e) {}
}
?>

{% endhighlight %}  

By implementing event handling methods you can listen to event and even update passed objects.
Extensions have some basic methods you can use:

* `write` - prints to screen
* `writeln` - prints to screen with line end char at the end
* `getModule` - allows you to access a module
* `hasModule` - checks if module is enabled
* `getModuleNames` - list all enabled modules
* `_reconfigure` - can be implemented instead of overriding constructor. 

### Enabling Extension

Once you've implemented a simple extension class, you can require it in `tests/_bootstrap.php`, 
load with Composer's autoloader defined in `composer.json`, or store class inside `tests/_support`dir.

Then you can enable it in `codeception.yml`:

{% highlight yaml %}

extensions:
    enabled: [MyCustomExtension]

{% endhighlight %}

### Configuring Extension

In extension you can access currently passed options via `options` property.
You also can access global config via `\Codeception\Configuration::config()` method. 
But if you want to have custom options for your extension, you can pass them in `codeception.yml` file:

{% highlight yaml %}

extensions:
    enabled: [MyCustomExtension]
    config:
        MyCustomExtension:
            param: value


{% endhighlight %}

Passed configuration is accessible via `config` property: `$this->config['param']`.

Check out a very basic extension [Notifier](https://github.com/Codeception/Notifier).

## Group Objects

Group Objects are extensions listening to events of a tests belonging to a specific group.
When a test is added to a group:

{% highlight php %}

<?php 
$scenario->group('admin');
$I = new AcceptanceTester($scenario);
?>

{% endhighlight %}

This test will trigger events:

* `test.before.admin`
* `step.before.admin`
* `step.after.admin`
* `test.success.admin`
* `test.fail.admin`
* `test.after.admin`

A group object is built to listen to these events. It is pretty useful when additional setup is required for some of your tests. Let's say you want to load fixtures for tests that belong to `admin` group:

{% highlight php %}

<?php
namespace Group;

class Admin extends \Codeception\GroupObject
{
    public static $group = 'admin';

    public function _before(\Codeception\Event\TestEvent $e)
    {
        $this->writeln('inserting additional admin users...');

        $db = $this->getModule('Db');
        $db->haveInDatabase('users', array('name' => 'bill', 'role' => 'admin'));
        $db->haveInDatabase('users', array('name' => 'john', 'role' => 'admin'));
        $db->haveInDatabase('users', array('name' => 'mark', 'role' => 'banned'));
    }

    public function _after(\Codeception\Event\TestEvent $e)
    {
        $this->writeln('cleaning up admin users...');
        // ...
    }
}
?>

{% endhighlight %}

A group class can be created with `php codecept.phar generate:group groupname` command.
Group class will be stored in `tests/_support/Group` directory.

A group class can be enabled just like you enable extension class. In file `codeception.yml`:

{% highlight yaml %}

extensions:
    enabled: [Group\Admin]    

{% endhighlight %}

Now Admin group class will listen to all events of tests that belong to the `admin` group.

## Conclusion

Each feature mentioned above may dramatically help when using Codeception to automate testing of large projects, although some features may require advanced knowledge of PHP. There is no "best practice" or "use cases" when we talk about groups, extensions, or other powerful features of Codeception. If you see you have a problem that can be solved using these extensions, then give them a try.




* **Next Chapter: [Data >](/docs/09-Data)**
* **Previous Chapter: [< AdvancedUsage](/docs/07-AdvancedUsage)**