New from the Ibuildings techPortal there's this tutorial about unit testing, specifically how to test databases using the Zend Framework (or in a ZF-based application).

Testing the database layer is a fundamental step during application development. It allows us to ensure that all data operations behave properly, without data loss or corruption. In this article, we are going to describe a simple way to test the database layer of our applications, using PHPUnit database classes, Zend Framework extensions and some custom reusable code to facilitate the process for all the domain models.

He identifies some of the main testing challenges for testing database functionality including how not to test the application instead. He talks about testing the create/read/update/delete (CRUD) and how to write your tests accordingly. Code for some sample tests are provided and a checklist of steps to follow to write and run the testing.