A local test installation #

This page is for app developers who want an Exponential installation of their own to develop and test against. With SQLite it needs no database server and installs in minutes.

Contents #

1. Install
2. Check the APIs
3. Prepare it for the app
4. Reach it from a device
5. Reset between runs

Install #

From a checkout of Exponential with its requirements met (Requirements):

./console exp:install --apply

That installs the multisite package on SQLite in eng-US with the siteaccesses site and admin and prints the addresses and the login (Installing Exponential in one command). A fuller development setup, with a web server and development settings, is in Setting up a development environment.

Check the APIs #

Run the three probes of Testing against a demo against your local address. If REST answers 404, activate ezprestapi the way the guide describes (Migrating from ezprestapiprovider):

# settings/override/site.ini.append.php
[ExtensionSettings]
ActiveExtensions[]=ezprestapi

php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-tag=ini --allow-root-user
php bin/php/ezpgenerateautoloads.php -e

Then reload PHP-FPM, or restart Velocity if it serves the site. If the remote services are missing, the same procedure with ActiveExtensions[]=expservices applies (Remote services and apps, section 1).

Prepare it for the app #

1. Content: a folder for the app with a few items of each class the app shows; give the folder a remote id the app's configuration uses (Node ids, remote ids and deep links).
2. A role and a user exactly like production's integration user (Permissions for app users).
3. A personal API key of that user for tests (apikey/create in a role first) (Personal API keys for tools).
4. An OAuth client in Setup > oAuth admin, with the redirect address of your development back end, and oauth/authorize for the test users (OAuth2 authorization code flow).
5. An expservices token of the test user, if the app uses the remote services (expservices tokens in apps).

Reach it from a device #

• The Android emulator reaches the host computer at 10.0.2.2; the iOS simulator shares the host's network, so localhost works there.
• A real phone needs the computer's address on the local network and a server that listens on it.
• Use HTTPS as in production where the platform requires it for app traffic; a local certificate or a tunnel are the usual ways. Keep plain HTTP exceptions out of release builds.

Reset between runs #

• Keep a copy of the SQLite database file after preparing it, and copy it back before a test run, so every run starts from the same content and ids.
• Or script the preparation with the remote services (expnode::create with fixed remote_ids) and run it after a fresh install.

Related pages #

• Testing apps against Exponential
• Testing applications
• Getting started
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.