Using a Zend partial view helper in Qunit tests

Question

I'm quite new to both Zend and QUnit and I've got a bit stuck when it comes to setting up my QUnit tests to test my JavaScript.

I'm trying to test to some DOM manipulation and I understand that I have to put the html I'm testing against inside a #qunit-fixture div in my Qunit test file. However I've got a partial view helper used in my main Zend application (works fine in my view scripts) which I just want to echo out rather than having to rewrite the html used in the helper itself (to avoid duplication). The JavaScript I am attempting to test is used in the partial view helper hence wanting to use it.

Here's the folder structure for my application with just the important files and a few others remaining:

├── application
│   ├── Bootstrap.php
│   ├── configs
│   ├── controllers
│   ├── layouts
│   │   └── scripts
│   ├── models
│   ├── plugins
│   └── views
│       ├── helpers
│       └── scripts
│           ├── error
│           ├── index
│           └── partials
│               └── partialViewHelperIWantToUse.phtml
├── docs
├── features
├── Gemfile
├── Gemfile.lock
├── js-tests
│   ├── qunitTestFile.html
│   └── vendor
│       └── qunit
│           ├── qunit.css
│           └── qunit.js
├── library
│   ├── Custom
├── public
│   ├── css
│   ├── img
│   ├── index.php
│   └── js
│       ├── jquery
│       │   └── jquery-1.7.2.min.js
│       └── javaScriptIWantToTest.js
├── Rakefile
├── tasks
└── tests
    ├── application
    │   ├── controllers
    │   └── models
    ├── bootstrap.php
    ├── library
    │   └── Custom
    └── phpunit.xml

I want to do something like this in my qunitTestFile.html (found in js-tests)

<div id="qunit-fixture">
    <?php echo $view->partial('partialViewHelperIWantToUse.phtml') ?>
</div>

but it currently doesn't work. Renaming the qunitTestFile to have a .phtml extension causes nothing to echo out but the error "call to a member function partial() on a non-object" appears in the apache error log (I expected that but it was a simple thing to try!). I have a hunch that I might need to create another bootstrap file or something but both and Zend and Qunit are new to me so I'm a bit lost. =)

I hope that's clear and I've given enough information but let me know if it isn't.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Since I do not exactly know which Zend version you use, I am not sure if this helps you:

The partial()-Function is a helper of your view. Since a View .phtml File is called in a Zend_View-Context (if you use an Controller-Action to show the View) you should use

$this->partial('...');

You can setup a Zend_View for yourself, but according your directory structure, I assume you use an MVC-Pattern.