This mini How-To will teach you how to run Akelos PHP Framework core tests on a windows environment using a XAMPP stack.

Supposing we have our XAMPP installed at "C:\xampp", cURL enabled, a copy of Akelos at "C:\xampp\akelos_framework" and php.exe available at our current PATH.

We will create an Akelos application at "C:\xampp\htdocs\tests" for testing by running the command

<code>
php.exe C:\xampp\akelos_framework\akelos -d c:\xampp\htdocs\tests -f -deps
</code>

the '-deps' option will include the whole framework and its tests.

Now create a database named 'akelos_tests' and add a config file at config/config.php with the following settings (customize db credentials):
<code>
<?php

$database_settings = array(
    'testing' => array(
        'type' => 'mysql',
        'database_file' => '',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'port' => '',
        'database_name' => 'akelos_tests',
        'user' => 'root',
        'password' => '',
        'options' => ''
    )
);

defined('AK_ENVIRONMENT') ? null : define('AK_ENVIRONMENT', 'testing');
define('AK_AVAILABLE_LOCALES', 'en,es');
define('AK_ACTIVE_RECORD_DEFAULT_LOCALES', 'en,es');
define('AK_APP_LOCALES', 'en,es');
define('AK_PUBLIC_LOCALES', 'en,es');

defined('AK_FRAMEWORK_DIR') ? null : define('AK_FRAMEWORK_DIR', 'C:\xampp\htdocs\tests');

defined('AK_TESTING_URL') ? null : define('AK_TESTING_URL', 'http://localhost/tests/test/fixtures/public');

// Update framework copy
exec('C:\xampp\php\php.exe C:\xampp\akelos_framework\akelos -d c:\xampp\htdocs\tests -f -deps');

// Fix testing htaccess
$_ht = file_get_contents('C:\xampp\htdocs\tests\test\fixtures\public\.htaccess');
$_ht = str_replace('# RewriteBase /test/fixtures/public','RewriteBase /tests/test/fixtures/public',$_ht);
file_put_contents('C:\xampp\htdocs\tests\test\fixtures\public\.htaccess',$_ht);

// Remove security rule
unlink('C:\xampp\htdocs\tests\test\.htaccess');

include_once(dirname(__FILE__).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'boot.php');

?>
</code>

and now open a console, change to the testing dir
<code>
cd C:\xampp\htdocs\tests
</code>

and run the core unit tests with

<code>
php.exe script/test unit
</code>

If everything went OK you should see a "Unit tests for the Akelos Framework" message and in a few minutes you will see the results for the tests (hopefully)
<code cmd>
C:\xampp\htdocs\tests>php.exe script/test unit
Unit tests for the Akelos Framework
OK
Test cases run: 61/61, Passes: 2748, Failures: 0, Exceptions: 0
</code>

And that's it what it takes to run core tests.