The Definitive Guide to Yii 2.0

Core Validators

Yii provides a set of commonly used core validators, found primarily under the yii\validators namespace. Instead of using lengthy validator class names, you may use aliases to specify the use of these core validators. For example, you can use the alias required to refer to the [[yii\validators\RequiredValidator]] class:

Console applications

Besides the rich features for building web applications, Yii also has full-featured support for console applications which are mainly used to create background and maintenance tasks that need to be performed for a website.

The structure of console applications is very similar to a Yii web application. It consists of one or more [[yii\console\Controller]] classes, which are often referred to as commands in the console environment. Each controller can also have one or more actions, just like web controllers.

Creating your own Application structure

Note: This section is under development.

While the basic and advanced project templates are great for most of your needs, you may want to create your own project template with which to start your projects.

Yii 2 Advanced Project Template

Yii 2 Advanced Project Template is a skeleton Yii 2 application best for developing complex Web applications with multiple tiers.

The template includes three tiers: front end, back end, and console, each of which is a separate Yii application.

Fixtures

Fixtures are an important part of testing. Their main purpose is to set up the environment in a fixed/known state so that your tests are repeatable and run in an expected way. Yii provides a fixture framework that allows you to define your fixtures precisely and use them easily both when running your tests with Codeception and independently.

Acceptance Tests

Acceptance test verifies scenarios from a user's perspective. The application tested is accessed via either PhpBrowser or a real browser. In both cases the browsers are communicating via HTTP so application should be served via web server.

Functional Tests

Functional test verifies scenarios from a user's perspective. It is similar to acceptance test but instead of communicating via HTTP it is filling up environment such as POST and GET parameters and then executes application instance right from the code.

Unit Tests

A unit test verifies that a single unit of code is working as expected. That is, given different input parameters, the test verifies the class method returns expected results. Unit tests are usually developed by people who write the classes being tested.

Testing environment setup

Yii 2 has officially maintained integration with Codeception testing framework that allows you to create the following test types:

• Unit - verifies that a single unit of code is working as expected;
• Functional - verifies scenarios from a user's perspective via browser emulation;
• Acceptance - verifies scenarios from a user's perspective in a browser.