Last modified: 2011-02-08 20:22:03 UTC
PHPUnit parser tests modify the db database. Even if they are not going to be run. MediaWikiParserTest loads the tests using TestFileIterator (parserTest.inc) which add the articles to the db when encountering them in parserTests.txt. PS: They are broken as of r74646, so it may make sense to fix them before.
In r79109, the ability to use a non-production database is enabled, so this could be fixed fairly easily now.
In the rewrite of the parser tests in PHPUnit, this has been fixed in trunk. The old ones are kept for now until they are checked in CodeReview, but this has probably been fixed.