phpunit Assertions Assert an Object is an Instance of a Class

Example

PHPUnit provides the following function to assert whether an object is an instance of a class:

assertInstanceOf($expected, $actual[, $message = ''])

The first parameter $expected is the name of a class (string). The second parameter $actual is the object to be tested. $message is an optional string you can provide in case it fails.

Let's start with a simple Foo class:

class Foo {

}

Somewhere else in a namespace Crazy, there is a Bar class.

namespace Crazy

class Bar {

}

Now, let's write a basic test case that would check an object for these classes

use Crazy\Bar;

class sampleTestClass extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{

    public function test_instanceOf() {

        $foo = new Foo();
        $bar = new Bar();

        // this would pass
        $this->assertInstanceOf("Foo",$foo);

        // this would pass
        $this->assertInstanceOf("\\Crazy\\Bar",$bar);

        // you can also use the ::class static function that returns the class name
        $this->assertInstanceOf(Bar::class, $bar);

        // this would fail
        $this->assertInstanceOf("Foo", $bar, "Bar is not a Foo");

    }
}    

Note that PHPUnit gets grumpy if you send in a classname that doesn't exist.