PHPUnit vs. Refraction vs. dotCover vs. test_coverage Comparison Chart

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.

dotCover is a .NET unit testing and code coverage tool that works right in Visual Studio and in JetBrains Rider, helps you know to what extent your code is covered with unit tests, provides great ways to visualize code coverage, and is Continuous Integration ready. dotCover calculates and reports statement-level code coverage in applications targeting .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono for Unity, etc. dotCover is a plug-in to Visual Studio and JetBrains Rider, giving you the advantage of analyzing and visualizing code coverage without leaving the code editor. This includes running unit tests and analyzing coverage results right in the IDEs, as well as support for different color themes, new icons and menus. dotCover comes bundled with a unit test runner that it shares with another JetBrains tool for .NET developers, ReSharper. dotCover supports continuous testing, a modern unit testing workflow whereby dotCover figures out on-the-fly which unit tests are affected by your code changes.