I would like to see the "standard" Zend Framework bootstrapping method to be supported in Zend_Test_PHPUnit_ControllerTestCase. It is confusing and not obvious on how to reuse your Zend_Application_Bootstrap when using the ControllerTestCase.

There are 2 ways that this can be done.

------ First Method ------

Document with code examples on how to use Zend_Application_Bootstrap_* in the Zend_Test_PHPUnit_ControllerTestCase manual. However one issue is that it feels a bit weird as you have to overwrite $this->_frontController manually yourself.

--- One Current Example ---

public function setUp()
{
    $this->bootstrap = array($this, 'appBootstrap');
    parent::setUp();
}

public function appBootstrap()
{
    $this->frontController
         ->registerPlugin(new Bugapp_Plugin_Initialize('development'));
}

--- Using Zend_Application_Bootstrap Example ---

public function setUp()
{
    $this->bootstrap = array($this, 'appBootstrap');
    parent::setUp();
}

public function appBootstrap()
{   
    // Create application, bootstrap, but don't RUN!
    $application = new Zend_Application(
        APPLICATION_ENV,
        APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini'
    );
    $bootstrap = $application->getBootstrap();
    $bootstrap->bootstrap(); //note run() is not called!
    //front controller now bootstrapped using whatever method you used (config, resource plugin...etc)
    //Having $this->frontController and $this->_frontController may be hard to explain
    $this->_frontController = $bootstrap->getResource('frontController');
}

As you can see this is quite simple, but as I noted in the comment it may be confusing to explain that you have to overwrite $this->_frontController not $this->frontController.

------ Second Method ------

Actually supporting Zend_Application_Bootstrap in ControllerTestCase.

public function setUp()
{
    $this->bootstrap = new Zend_Application(
        APPLICATION_ENV,
        APPLICATION_PATH . '/configs/application.ini'
    );
    parent::setUp();
}

if $this->bootstrap is set to an instance of Zend_Application then have the ControllerTestCase automatically call $bootstrap->bootstrap() for you. Future calls to $this->getFrontController() will retrieve the frontController from the bootstrap instead.

This is a simplified example obviously and I may have missed some details, but it seems obvious for some kind of support of the "standard" bootstrapping method. Bootstrapping can be very lengthy/complex and since the main goal is re-usability why would we want to have a completely different bootstrap method (or duplicated) for controller testing. I think this improvement will "sync" Zend_Test_PHPUnit_ControllerTestCase with the encouraged bootstrap method. This also puts to great use the separate production , development, testing ini settings document in the Zend_Application quick start. It becomes even more important with all the plugins with preDispatch details...etc. I think you get the point :).

Thoughts, suggestions, hate messages are welcomed :)