Welcome to the Mink documentation!

One of the most important parts in the web is a browser. A browser is the window through which web users interact with web applications and other users. Users are always talking with web applications through browsers.

So, in order to test that our web application behaves correctly, we need a way to simulate this interaction between the browser and the web application in our tests. We need Mink.

Mink is an open source browser controller/emulator for web applications, written in PHP.

Read Mink at a Glance to learn more about Mink and why you need it.

Installation

Mink is a php library that you’ll use inside your test suites or project. Before you begin, ensure that you have at least PHP 5.4 installed.

The recommended way to install Mink with all its dependencies is through Composer:

$ composer require --dev behat/mink

Note

For local installations of composer you must call it like this: $ php composer.phar require --dev behat/mink . In this case you must use the different call php composer.phar everywhere instead of the simple command composer.

Everything will be installed inside the vendor folder. Finally, include the Composer autoloading script to your project:

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

Note

By default, Mink will be installed with no drivers. In order to be able to use additional drivers, you should install them (through composer). Require the appropriate dependencies:

  • GoutteDriver - behat/mink-goutte-driver
  • Selenium2Driver - behat/mink-selenium2-driver
  • BrowserKitDriver - behat/mink-browserkit-driver
  • ChromeDriver - dmore/chrome-mink-driver
  • ZombieDriver - behat/mink-zombie-driver
  • SeleniumDriver - behat/mink-selenium-driver
  • SahiDriver - behat/mink-sahi-driver
  • WUnitDriver - behat/mink-wunit-driver

If you’re a newcomer or just don’t know what to choose, you should probably start with the GoutteDriver and the Selenium2Driver (you will be able to tune it up later):

Testing Tools Integration

Mink has integrations for several testing tools: