Getting started with Yii2 development

1. Clone your fork of yii2 git clone git@github.com:<yourname>/yii2.
2. Change into the repo folder cd yii2.
3. run ./build/build app/link basic to install composer dependecies for the basic app. This command will install foreign composer packages as normal but will link the yii2 repo to the currently checked out repo, so you have one instance of all the code installed.
4. Do the same for the advanced app if needed: ./build/build app/link advanced This command will also be used to update dependecies, it runs composer update internally.
5. Now you have a working playground for hacking on Yii 2.

You may also add the yii2 upstream repo to pull the latest changes:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2.git

Please refer to Git workflow for Yii 2 contributors for details about creating pull requests.

Unit tests

To run the unit tests you have to install composer packages for the dev-repo. Run composer update in the repo root directory to get the latest packages.

You can now execute unit tests by running phpunit.

You may limit the tests to a group of tests you are working on e.g. to run only tests for the validators and redis phpunit --group=validators,redis.

Functional and acceptance tests

In order to run functional and acceptance tests you need to install additional composer packages for the application you're going to test. Add the following four packages to your composer.json require-dev section:

"yiisoft/yii2-codeception": "*",

For advanced application you may need yiisoft/yii2-faker: * as well.

Then for the basic application template run ./build/build app/link basic. For advanced template command is ./build/build app/link advanced.

After package installation is complete you can run the following for basic app:

cd apps/basic
codecept build
codecept run

For advanced application frontend it will be:

cd apps/advanced/frontend
codecept build
codecept run

Note that you need a running webserver in order to pass acceptance tests. That can be easily achieved with PHP's built-in webserver:

cd apps/advanced/frontend/www
php -S 127.0.0.1:8080

Note that you should have Codeception and PHPUnit installed globally:

composer global require "phpunit/phpunit=4.1.*"
composer global require "codeception/codeception=2.0.*"
composer global require "codeception/specify=*"
composer global require "codeception/verify=*"

After running commands you'll see "Changed current directory to /your/global/composer/dir" message. If it's the first time you're installing a package globally you need to add /your/global/composer/dir/vendor/bin/ to your PATH.

Extensions

To work on extensions you have to install them in the application you want to try them in. Just add them to the composer.json as you would normally do e.g. add "yiisoft/yii2-redis": "*" to the require section of the basic app. Running ./build/build app/link basic will install the extension and its dependecies and create a symlink to extensions/redis so you are not working the composer vendor dir but the yii2 repo directly.