This wiki post will show you how to get the FlexUnit 4.1 beta up and running in FDT 3.5 by making use of the FlexUnit ANT tasks.

First up we will download the FlexUnit 4.1 beta; I will be downloading the build for FlexSDK 3.5, AS3 Pure.

Once unzipped, you will want to add the FlexUnit 4.1 libraries to your project’s libs folder; once copied across your project should look something like the screenshot below:

Copying the FlexUnit 4.1 libs into your FDT project

Once you have copied the FlexUnit 4.1 libs into your project you will want to add the FlexUnit core library SWC to your FDT Class Path so you get code completion on FlexUnit methods; this is done by right-clicking on the flexunit-core-4.1.0-beta1.swc file; again see the screnshow below:

Adding the FlexUnit 4.1 Core SWC to your project's Class Path

Next up we will add a very simple, sample test to the project, start by adding a new “Source Folder” to your project by selecting File -> New -> Source Folder; name the folder test-src. Now create a new ActionScript Class in the test-src folder and name it TestExample.as.

Because FlexUnit 4 is driven by metadata, there is no need to extend a base class; instead you just need to annotate the methods which represent test with the [Test] metadata tag. Our example test will do nothing, but will at least allow FlexUnit 4.1 to fire up and show some output:

The final step is to setup the ANT Build File which will automatically create our TestSuite and launch the FlexUnit 4 Visual Test Runner to display the outcome of our test. If you have not used ANT before in FDT then you may need to open the ANT View by selecting Window -> Show View -> Ant.

Create a new file named build.xml in your project; when you open this file for editing FDT should automatically fire up the ANT editor which provides syntax highlighting for you. Start off by creating a barebones ANT file:

Now drag the build.xml into the ANT View; once added it should appear like the screenshot below:

Creating an ANT BuildFile and adding it to the ANT View

Now we want to create a new Build Task which will generate a Test Suite from our test-src folder and then compile a FlexUnit 4.1 SWF which runs those tests.

Once you’re build file is setup you can execute the test ANT task. If the task completes succesfully, FlexUnit will have populated the reports folder with both JUnit style reports and an HTML version which can be opened in a web browser.

SUCCESS! My Test Passed :)

If the build fails then the Output Console view should provide you with some debugging hints; if you are using FlexUnit 4.1 Beta 1 then make sure your Flex SDK path does not include any spaces (this particular bug will be fixed in beta 2 of FlexUnit 4.1).

Further reading:

• FlexUnit ANT Task documentation
• FlexUnit Support Forum

As my work is split between programming in PHP and ActionScript, I use Flex Builder as the base for my Eclipse Setup (Flex Builder 3 is built ontop of the Eclipse 3.3 platform).  Flex Builder comes with an ActionScript parser and debugger.  The parser is not as good as FDT (which I use at work), but is a damn sight cheaper which is always welcome.   Eclipse is incredibly modular and allows you to enhance it’s basic functionality buy installing components which provide additional perspective and functionality.   I make use of the following:

• PDT 1.x – PHP Development Tool, includes code completion and syntax highlighting.
• Subclipse 1.4 – SVN Integration for eclipse, essentail for checking in my own code and 3rd party code which I make sure of (Such as the CakePHP Core).  Again, if you’re not using SVN then you really should!

I keep my PHP and ActionScript development seperate by using two Workspaces and swtiching between the two (I do a similar thing at work by having two workspaces for our ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3 projects at Mindcandy).  To avoid any potential UAC problems in Vista, I make sure that my Workspace is located in my User folder – this also helps with backups keeping everything in one place.

To back this up, I run a straight forward Apache 2.2, MySQL 5 and PHP 5.2 stack ontop of Windows Vista x64 (Even with UAC turned on!).  I had no problems installing the stack, I just made sure that everything was installed inside my User folder.  (ie: C:\Users\Jonny\Webroot\Apache2-2, etc).  I configure individual vhosts for the projects I work on and point the webroot at my Eclipse Workspace (ie: C:\Users\Jonny\Projects\PHP\Project_Name). This allows me to simulate a webdeploy environment which makes deploying sites to a web server easier.  To complete my local dev setup I setup fake sendmail which allows the mail() funcitons inside PHP 5 to be relayed to a remote mail server (very handy! — again, I was suprised that this worked without a hitch on Vista x64).