CodeSonar vs. Jtest vs. PHPUnit vs. test_coverage Comparison Chart

CodeSonar employs a unified dataflow and symbolic execution analysis that examines the computation of the complete application. By not relying on pattern matching or similar approximations, CodeSonar's static analysis engine is extraordinarily deep, finding 3-5 times more defects on average than other static analysis tools. Unlike many software development tools, such as testing tools, compilers, configuration management, etc., SAST tools can be integrated into a team's development process at any time with ease. SAST technologies like CodeSonar simply attach to your existing build environments to add analysis information to your verification process. Like a compiler, CodeSonar does a build of your code using your existing build environment, but instead of creating object code, CodeSonar creates an abstract model of your entire program. From the derived model, CodeSonar’s symbolic execution engine explores program paths, reasoning about program variables and how they relate.

PHPUnit requires the dom and json extensions, which are normally enabled by default. PHPUnit also requires the pcre, reflection, and spl extensions. These standard extensions are enabled by default and cannot be disabled without patching PHP’s build system and/or C sources. The code coverage report feature requires the Xdebug (2.7.0 or later) and tokenizer extensions. Generating XML reports requires the xmlwriter extension. Unit Tests are primarily written as a good practice to help developers identify and fix bugs, to refactor code and to serve as documentation for a unit of software under test. To achieve these benefits, unit tests ideally should cover all the possible paths in a program. One unit test usually covers one specific path in one function or method. However a test method is not necessarily an encapsulated, independent entity. Often there are implicit dependencies between test methods, hidden in the implementation scenario of a test.