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  1. Documentation
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  3. Blackfire Player

Blackfire Player

Blackfire Player is a powerful Web Crawling, Web Testing, and Web Scraper application. It provides a nice DSL to crawl HTTP services, assert responses, and extract data from HTML/XML/JSON responses.

Some Blackfire Player use cases:

  • Crawl an application/API and check expectations -- aka Acceptance Tests;
  • Scrape an application/API and extract values;
  • Synthetic monitoring of an application;
  • Test code with unit test integration (PHPUnit, Behat, Codeception, ...);
  • Test code behavior from the outside thanks to the native Blackfire Profiler integration -- aka Unit Tests from the HTTP layer (tm).

Blackfire Player executes scenarios written in a special DSL described in the blackfire.yaml file or in files ending with .bkf.

Use the online validator to validate the syntax of your tests files.

blackfire-player is distributed through a Docker image.

To run a scenario located in the my-scenario.bkf file, run the following command:

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The pwd part is the local working directory (we are using the current directory here) and it is mapped to the /app path in the Docker container.

BLACKFIRE_CLIENT_ID and BLACKFIRE_CLIENT_TOKEN environment variables need to be properly exposed from the host in order to be able to use the Blackfire Profiler integration.

The Blackfire Profiler integration allows to trigger Blackfire Builds locally to evaluate the performance of critical user journeys gathering the related profile into a convenient report.

To make it simpler to run this command, you might create a shell alias (that you can store in a .bashrc or .zshrc file depending on your shell):

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Don't forget to restart your terminal for it to take effect. You can then use blackfire-player as if it was the binary itself:

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blackfire-player --version
blackfire-player list
blackfire-player run my-scenario.bkf

Using the host network mode for the blackfire/player container allows to bypass the isolation of containers and permits Blackfire Player to trigger requests on your application container.

The --endpoint option should be set to your application container public URL. Depending on your configuration, you might need the --ssl-no-verify option to mitigate eventual local certificate issues.

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docker run --rm -it \
    --network host \
    -e BLACKFIRE_CLIENT_ID \
    -e BLACKFIRE_CLIENT_TOKEN \
    -v "`pwd`:/app" \
    blackfire/player run my-scenario.bkf \
    --endpoint <CONTAINER_PUBLIC_URL> \
    --ssl-no-verify

DDEV integration documentation provides a convenient custom command.

Use the run command to execute a scenario file:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf

The file argument may be omitted when using the standard input:

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cat scenario.bkf | blackfire-player run

You can also run scenarios contained in a .blackfire.yaml file:

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blackfire-player run .blackfire.yaml

Use the --endpoint option to override the endpoint defined in the scenario file:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --endpoint=http://example.com/

Use the --json option to output a JSON report:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --json

Use the --variable option to override variable values:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --variable "foo=bar" --variable "bar=foo"

Use the --concurrency option to run scenarios in parallel (experimental):

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --concurrency=5

Use -v to get logs about the progress of the player or use tracer option to store all requests and responses on disk.

Use the --blackfire-env option defines the environment to which send the Blackfire Build results. It is required only when using the Blackfire Profiler integration.

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blackfire-player run my-scenario.bkf --blackfire-env=<ENVIRONMENT_NAME_OR_UUID>

The "run" command uses the following exit codes in case of failure:

  • 64 if at least one scenario fails;
  • 65 if a fatal error occurs, preventing the build to play correctly;
  • 66 if a non-fatal error occurs;

The validate command checks if passed scenario file is valid:

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blackfire-player validate scenario.bkf

The file argument may be omitted when using the standard input:

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cat scenario.bkf | blackfire-player validate

It is not possible to validate a scenario contained in a .blackfire.yaml file.

Use the --json option to output a JSON report:

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blackfire-player validate scenario.bkf --json

The command uses the following exit codes in case of failure:

  • 64 if the file is invalid;

Blackfire Player lets you crawl an application thanks to descriptive scenarios written in a domain specific language:

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name "A build made of scenario"

# Default endpoint
# Can be override with option "--endpoint=http://newendpoint.com"
endpoint "http://example.com/"

scenario
    name "Scenario Name"

    visit url('/')
        expect status_code() == 200

This example shows how to make a request on an HTTP application (http://example.com/) and be sure that it behaves the way you expect it to by Writing Expectations (the status code of the response is 200).

Store the scenario in a scenario.bkf, and run it:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf

# or
php blackfire-player run scenario.bkf

Add more requests to a scenario by indenting lines as below:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        expect status_code() == 200

    visit url('/blog/')
        expect status_code() == 200

The line indentation defines the structure like for Python scripts or YAML files. Validate bkf files with the validate command: blackfire-player validate scenario.bkf.

A scenario is a sequence of HTTP calls (steps) that share the HTTP session and cookies. Scenario definitions are declarative, the order of settings (like expectations) within a "step" does not matter.

Instead of making discrete requests like above, you can also interact with the HTTP response if the content type is HTML by clicking on links, submitting forms, or follow redirections (see Making requests for more information):

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        expect status_code() == 200

    click link('Read more')
        expect status_code() == 200

If your scenario does not work as expected, use -v to get a more verbose output.

You can add comments in a scenario file by prefixing the line with #:

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# This is a comment
scenario
    # Comment are ignored
    visit url('/')
        expect status_code() == 200

There are several ways you can jump from one HTTP request to the next.

Visiting a Page with visit

visit goes directly to the referenced HTTP URL (defaults to the GET HTTP method unless you define one explicitly):

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        method 'POST'

You can also pass a Request body:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        method 'PUT'
        body '{ "title": "New Title" }'

An expression can be written on several lines with the following syntax:

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scenario
    visit url('/login')
        method 'POST'
        body
        """
        {
            "user": "john",
            "password": "doe"
        }
        """

Starting from version v1.11.0 you can also use variables by adding i option to multiline string.

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scenario
    visit url('/login')
        method 'POST'
        set username "john"
        set password "doe"
        body
        """i
        {
            "user": "${username}",
            "password": "${password}"
        }
        """

submit submits a form in an HTML page (takes an expression as an argument); parameters to submit with the form are defined via param entries:

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scenario
    submit button("Submit")
        param title 'Happy Scraping'
        param content 'Scraping with Blackfire Player is so easy!'

        # File Upload:
        # the path is relative to the current .bkf file
        # the name parameter is optional
        param image file('relative/path/to/image.png', 'blackfire.png')

Values can also be randomly generated via the fake() function:

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scenario
    submit button("Submit")
        param title fake('sentence', 5)
        param content join(fake('paragraphs', 3), "\n\n")

Generate random images with the simple_image generator:

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scenario
    submit button("Submit")
        param image file(fake('simple_image', null, 400, 300, 'png', true, true), 'placeholder.png')

fake() use the Faker library under the hood.

Read the simple_imagegenerator documentation for more information about its arguments.

HTTP redirections are never followed automatically to let you write expectations and assertions on redirect responses:

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scenario
    visit "redirect.php"
        expect status_code() == 302
        expect header('Location') == '/redirected.php'

Use follow to follow one redirection:

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scenario
    visit "redirect.php"
        expect status_code() == 302
        expect header('Location') == '/redirected.php'

    follow
        expect status_code() == 200

follow_redirects switches the player to automatically follow all redirections:

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scenario
    follow_redirects true

or:

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scenario
    visit "redirect.php"
        follow_redirects

Please note that when using follow_redirects, expectations (expect) and assertions (assert) are checked on the redirecting response (so, before the redirection). Use a follow step if you need to check them after the redirection.

include allows to embed some repetitive steps into several scenarios to avoid copy/pasting the same code over and over again:

In a groups.bkf file, write a group that contains the logic to log in:

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group login
    visit url('/login')
        expect status_code() == 200

    submit button('Login')
        param user 'admin'
        param password 'admin'

Then, in another file, load the group and include it when you need it:

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load "groups.bkf"

scenario
    name "Scenario Name"

    include login

    visit url('/admin')
        expect status_code() == 200

Each step can be configured via the following options.

header sets a header:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        header "Accept-Language: en-US"

Simulate a specific browser is as simple as overriding the default User-Agent and using fake():

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        header 'User-Agent: ' ~ fake('firefox')

auth sets the Authorization header:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        auth "username:password"

wait adds a delay in milliseconds after sending the request:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        wait 10000

The wait value can be any valid expression; get a random delay by using fake():

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        wait fake('numberBetween', 1000, 3000)

Sending a JSON Body with json

json configures the Request to upload JSON encoded data as the body:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        method 'POST'
        param foo "bar"
        json true

You can also set some of these options for all steps of a scenario:

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scenario
    auth "username:password"
    header "Accept-Language: en-US"

... which can be disabled on any given step by setting the value to false:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        header "Accept-Language: false"
        auth false

Expectations are expressions evaluated against the current HTTP response and if one of them returns a falsy value, Blackfire Player stops the run and generates an error.

Expressions have access to the following functions:

  • current_url(): Returns the current URL
  • status_code(): The HTTP status code for the current HTTP response;
  • header(): Returns the value of an HTTP header;
  • body(): The HTTP body for the current HTTP response;
  • trim(): Strip whitespace from the beginning and end of a string;
  • unique(): Removes duplicate values from an array;
  • join(): Join array elements with a string;
  • merge(): Merge one or more arrays;
  • regex(): Perform a regular expression match;
  • css(): Returns nodes matching the CSS selector (for HTML responses);
  • xpath(): Returns nodes matching the XPath selector (for HTML and XML responses);
  • json(): Returns JSON elements (from the request) matching the CSS expression.
  • transform(): Returns JSON elements matching the CSS expression.

The css() and xpath() functions return Symfony\Component\DomCrawler\Crawler instances. Learn more about methods you can call on Crawler instances; the json() function returns a PHP array.

The json() function accepts JMESPath.

The result of calling functions can be checked via operators described.

Learn more about Expressions syntax in the Symfony documentation.

Here are some expression examples:

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# return all HTML nodes matching ".post h2 a"
css(".post h2 a")

# return the text of the first node matching ".post h2 a"
css(".post h2 a").first().text()

# return the href attribute of the first node matching ".post h2 a"
css(".post h2 a").first().attr("href")

# check that "h1" contains "Welcome"
css("h1:contains('Welcome')").count() > 0

# same as above
css("h1").first().text() matches "/Welcome/"

# return the Age request HTTP header
header("Age")

# check that the HTML body contains "Welcome"
body() matches "/Welcome/"

# get a value
json("_links.store.href")

# get keys
json("arguments."sql.pdo.queries".keys(@)")

Variables can be defined to make your scenarios dynamic. Use set to define the default value:

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scenario
    name "HTTP Cache"
    set env "dev"

    when "prod" == env
        visit url('/')
        # check HTTP cache, but only on production

And override it with the --variable option on the CLI:

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blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --variable env=prod

Use with to iterate over a set of data:

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scenario
    name "HTTP Cache"
    set paths ["/", "/blog/"]

    with path in paths
        visit url(path)
            name "Checking performance on path: " ~ path
            expect status_code() == 200
            # performance checks

scenario
    name "Checks on key pages"

    with name, data in \
        { \
            admin: { slug: "/admin/", expectedStatusCode: 401 }, \
            products: { slug: "/products/", expectedStatusCode: 200 }, \
            about: { slug: "/about/", expectedStatusCode: 200 } \
        }

        visit url(data["slug"])
            name "Checking performance on path: " ~ name
            expect status_code() == data["expectedStatusCode"]

Use while to perform loops:

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scenario
    name "While loops"
    visit url('/products/')
    set pageCount css(".max_results_count").first().text()

    set page 1
    while page < pageCount
        visit url('/products/?page=' ~ page)
            set page page + 1
            expect status_code() == 200
            # performance checks

To run scenarios defined in several files, you can use load instead of listing all the files as arguments to the player:

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# load and execute all scenarios from files in this directory
load "*.bkf"

# load and execute all scenarios from files in all sub-directories
load "**/*.bkf"

Blackfire Player integrates seamlessly with Blackfire Profiler. Read out the dedicated documentation to learn more about Blackfire Profiler integration.

When crawling an HTTP application, you can extract values from HTTP responses:

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scenario
    visit url('/')
        expect status_code() == 200
        set latest_post_title css(".post h2").first()
        set latest_post_href css(".post h2 a").first().attr("href")
        set latest_posts css(".post h2 a").extract('_text', 'href')
        set age header("Age")
        set content_type header("Content-Type")
        set token regex('/name="_token" value="([^"]+)"/')

set takes two arguments:

  • The name of the variable you want to store the value in;
  • An expression to evaluate.

Using json(), css(), and xpath() on JSON, HTML, and XML responses is recommended, but for pure text responses or complex values, you can use the generic regex() function.

regex() takes a regex as an argument and always returns the first captured parenthesized subpattern. Note that backslashes must be escaped by doubling them: "/\\.git/".

The values are also available at the end of a crawling session:

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# use --json to display a report including variable values
blackfire-player run scenario.bkf --json

Variable values can also be injected before running another scenario:

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scenario
    name "Scenario name"
    auth api_username ~ ':' ~ api_password
    set profile_uuid 'zzzz'

    visit url('/profiles' ~ profile_uuid)
        expect status_code() == 200
        set sql_queries json('arguments."sql.pdo.queries".keys(@)')
        set store_url json("_links.store.href")

    visit url(store_url)
        method 'POST'
        body '{ "foo": "batman" }'
        expect status_code() == 200