Why, Fatal error: Class 'PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase' not found in ...?

For those arriving here after updating phpunit to version 6 or greater released on 2017-02-03 (e.g. with composer), you may be getting this error because phpunit code is now namespaced (check changelog changelog ).

You will need to refactor things like \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase to \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase

Update 2023-03-30: updated changelog link based on comment

For higher version of phpunit such as 6.4 You must use the namespace PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase

use TestCase instead PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase

// use the following namespace
use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;

// extend using TestCase instead PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
class SampleTest extends TestCase {

}

I was running PHPUnit tests on PHP5, and then, I needed to support PHP7 as well. This is what I did:

In composer.json:

"phpunit/phpunit": "~4.8|~5.7"

In my PHPUnit bootstrap file (in my case, /tests/bootstrap.php):

// PHPUnit 6 introduced a breaking change that
// removed PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase as a base class,
// and replaced it with \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase
if (!class_exists('\PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase') && class_exists('\PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase'))
    class_alias('\PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase', '\PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase');

In other words, this will work for tests written originally for PHPUnit 4 or 5, but then needed to work on PHPUnit 6 as well.

You may get this error because you namespaced the file. If so you will need to specify that PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase is in the global namespace by preceding it with a backslash:

namespace AcmeInc\MyApplication\Tests
class StackTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {}

I submitted a crude PR to start conversation for correcting the documentation.

You can simply install PHPUnit to run commands (https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit/#php-archive-phar):

wget https://phar.phpunit.de/phpunit.phar
chmod +x phpunit.phar
mv phpunit.phar /usr/local/bin/phpunit

Run single test

And then run PHPunit test:

phpunit test.php

Content of test file is following:

<?php

class StackTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    protected function setUp()
    {
    }

    public function testSave()
    {

    }
}

Run test suite

Configuration of test suite: demosuite.xml. demo is directory containing all tests. Test files must be named as *_test.php (suffix).

<testsuites>
    <testsuite name="DemoTestSuite">
        <directory suffix="test.php">demo</directory>
    </testsuite>
</testsuites>

Test suite runs with following commands:

phpunit -c demosuite.xml --testsuite DemoTestSuite

Assumption:

Phpunit (3.7) is available in the console environment.

Action:

Enter the following command in the console:

SHELL> phpunit "{{PATH TO THE FILE}}"

Comments:

You do not need to include anything in the new versions of PHPUnit unless you do not want to run in the console. For example, running tests in the browser.

I use ZF2 and work for me when replaced 'PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase' to '\PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase'

I got it working with

include("vendor/autoload.php");

at the top of my test function.

If you have Centos or other Linux distribution you have to install phpunit package, I did that with yum install phpunit and it worked. Maybe you can have to add a repository, but I think it has to work smooth with the default ones (I have CentOS 7)

It may well be that you're running WordPress core tests, and have recently upgraded your PhpUnit to version 6. If that's the case, then the recent change to namespacing in PhpUnit will have broken your code.

Fortunately, there's a patch to the core tests at https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/40547 which will work around the problem. It also includes changes to travis.yml, which you may not have in your setup; if that's the case then you'll need to edit the .diff file to ignore the Travis patch.

1. Download the "Unified Diff" patch from the bottom of https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/40547

2. Edit the patch file to remove the Travis part of the patch if you don't need that. Delete from the top of the file to just above this line:

   Index: /branches/4.7/tests/phpunit/includes/bootstrap.php
   

3. Save the diff in the directory above your /includes/ directory - in my case this was the Wordpress directory itself

4. Use the Unix patch tool to patch the files. You'll also need to strip the first few slashes to move from an absolute to a relative directory structure. As you can see from point 3 above, there are five slashes before the include directory, which a -p5 flag will get rid of for you.

   $ cd [WORDPRESS DIRECTORY]
   $ patch -p5 < changeset_40547.diff 
   

After I did this my tests ran correctly again.

NOTICE: Command php bin/console generate:doctrine:crud also create TestController in src/Tests so it can throw error when you tried to start server if you don't have UnitTests. Remove the file fix it!

For me, it was because I ran

$ phpunit .

instead of

$ phpunit

when I already had a configured phpunit.xml file in the working directory.

I am using php 5.6 on window 10 with zend 1.12 version for me adding

require_once 'PHPUnit/Autoload.php';

before

abstract class Zend_Test_PHPUnit_ControllerTestCase extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase

worked. We need to add this above statement in ControllerTestCase.php file

PHPUnit With Composer Autoloader

I am using composer and found myself battling through this issue. Neither the old style (PHPUnit_Framekwork_TestCase) or the new style (\PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase) worked for me. After reading through all the answers here and elsewhere, I found it to be quite trivial.

NOTE: PHP namespaces are case insensitive, however composer is case-sensitive...

// WRONG
class TestChild extends \PhpUnit\Framework\TestCase {

// RIGHT
class TestChild extends \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase {

In the above example, note the change from \PhpUnit\... to \PHPUnit\....
This makes all the difference with the composer autoloader.