Two projects in a solution that use different default paths - c#

I have two projects in my solution, ChatProject and ChatProjectTest.
ChatProjectTest has a single class file that has many methods that test methods in ChatProject.
My problem is that ChatProject uses some files, like data.bin and log.txt, that are stored in the .exe folder (that is ChatProject\bin\Debug\ChatProject.exe). I want ChatProjectTest to use the same files, and not go ahead and create or load new files in its own .exe folder (ChatProjectTest\bin\Debug\ChatProject.exe), like it does currently.
To be clear, the file paths are stored in constant variables in ChatProject like this:
private static string DATABASE_NAME = "data.bin";
I didn't hardcode their paths.

One solution can be configuring your projects to put all the output files into the same the same bin/ directory under your solution root (instead of two separate bin/ folders).
To do this, go to the "Build" tab under project settings and set "Output path" to
$(SolutionDir)Bin\$(Configuration)\
Repeat this for both of your projects.

If you don't specify a path to a file it looks in the current directory for them.
To use the same ones, you either have to specify some sort of relative path from the Test Output, or build the tests into the same folder as the Project.

You may allow the target file path to be injected e. g. via an optional constructor parameter:
public class SampleClass
{
private readonly string OutputDirectory;
public SampleClass(string outputDirectory = ".")
{
OutputDirectory = outputDirectory;
}
public void WriteData(string data)
{
File.AppendAllText($"{OutputDirectory}\\data.bin", data);
}
}
[TestClass]
public class SampleClassTest
{
[TestMethod]
public void WriteDataTest()
{
var sut = new SampleClass("..\\..\\..\\ChatProject\\bin\\Debug");
sut.WriteData("data");
}
}

Related

Search priority for views using EmbeddedFileProvider

I'm have this code pulling views embedded as resource in my referenced assembly:
services.Configure<RazorViewEngineOptions>(options =>
{
options.FileProviders.Add(new EmbeddedFileProvider(typeof(SomeTypeInMyAssembly).GetTypeInfo().Assembly));
});
It successfully finds views in the embedded location (Views\Shared\Components\ViewComponentName\Default.cshtml). I need it to FIRST search for the files in the current project BEFORE looking at any assemblies, this way I can create defaults in an assembly, and allow "overrides" in the main project (same path). Anyone have any ideas how this can be done? I'm still trying to look through the source to figure this out.
And no, ViewLocationExpander is not the answer. I need to use the exact same path and file names, thanks.
Turns out there are TWO options:
Add
options.FileProviders.Add(HostingEnvironment.ContentRootFileProvider);
just before EmbeddedFileProvider. (HostingEnvironment was simply taken
from the Startup() constructor and stored locally in the Startup class. The physical file on disk (could also be in the cache) will be found before the assembly version.
Wrap EmbeddedFileProvider in your own type (implement IFileProvider) and pass in IHostingEnvironment. The GetFileInfo() method is
called while trying to locate files. The
IHostingEnvironment instance is used to detect physical
files from the root content path, and returns NotFoundFileInfo if a local file exists:
public virtual IFileInfo GetFileInfo(string subpath)
{
if (_HostingEnvironment != null)
{
var filepath = Path.Combine(_HostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath, subpath.TrimStart('/'));
if (File.Exists(filepath))
return new NotFoundFileInfo(filepath);
}
return _EmbeddedFileProvider.GetFileInfo(subpath)
}
and add it to Startup.ConfigureServices():
services.Configure<RazorViewEngineOptions>(options =>
{
options.FileProviders.Add(new MyEmbeddedFileProvider(typeof(SomeTypeInTheTargetAssembly).GetTypeInfo().Assembly, HostingEnvironment));
});
}

Get relative path of XML File located in another project but Same Solution

I have found many Articles and Questions about finding an XML file but all of them are for Same Project.
Suppose I have my Project structure as shown below:
ABC <------ Solution
|--ABC.Data <------ Project
| |--XMLFiles <-------Folder
| |--AA.xml
|
|--ABC.Client <------ Project
| |--ViewModels <-------Folder
| |-MainViewModel.cs
Now I would like to load AA.xml file in MainViewModel.cs using XDocument.Load(....path.....).
So, how can I get path?
You will have to move back from the executing assembly folder on parent of ABC.Data and ABC.Client. For example the executing assembly is located in ABC.Client->ViewModels->Bin->Debug
XDocument.Load("../../../../../ABC.Data/ABC.Data/AA.xml");
But practically I see no use of it as the project hierarchy wont be there when you deploy the application. If you have XML file that need to be accessed by multiple assemblies the simply put that xml file in Execution folder. All the assemblies will be able to access it.
You can also make a separate assembly that exposes the AA.xml file data for read and write for all other projects by adding reference of that assembly to those projects. I would prefer this method.
you need a couple of settings to make your scenario work
first right click the xml file(or any file you want to access) and set 'Copy to Output Directory' to 'Copy Always' and when you build or publish the folder structure of that file(AA.xml in your case) will be created on bin or publish(web project) folder and you have simply have to write this code
var path = HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath+"\\bin";//path to you bin
if you are using winforms
var path = Application.StartupPath;//path to you bin
finally
var fullpath=path+"\\XMLFiles\\AA.xml";
XDocument.Load(fullpath) ;
however the better approach will be to create a Helper Class that will fetch the xml content for you application such as
public static class XMLHelpers
{
public static XMLDocument GetXML(string KEY)
{
string file="";
switch(KEY)
{
case "AA": file=Path.Combine(file,"AA.txt");
break;
}
var xmldoc=new XMLDocument();
xmldoc.Load(file);
return xmldoc;
}
}

Get the path from a SpecFlow feature file in a Step Definition

Is it possible to retrieve the path of a SpecFlow feature file during runtime in a Step Definition?
Snippet:
[Given(#"Some given statement")]
public void GivenSomeGivenStatement() {
var featureFilePath = // retrieve the path of the feature file
// that executes this step.
}
Context:
We do testing on databases and queries. The source data is created in Excel files and .SQL files (for check queries). These source data are large datasets, not feasible to put into the feature files itself or use the SpecFlow.Plus.Excel extension.
To keep the data close to the feature file, we want to have this data in the same folder as the feature file itself. To achieve this, we need the path to this feature file, so we also have the path to the testdata.
Here's a suggestion. This is just something I put together quickly so lots of room to improve. It relies on the Feature file name being identical to the title of the feature you provide in the description. It also assumes you have a conventional folder structure for your SpecFlow VS project as there is a lot of string manipulation.
Firstly, the calling code should use the SpecFlow BeforeScenario attribute. Something like this:
public void BeforeScenario()
{
//grabs Feature Title from SpecFlow context
var featureName = FeatureContext.Current.FeatureInfo.Title;
//Calls method to obtain path of file
var featureFilePath = GetFeatureFilePath(featureName);
}
The method GetFeatureFilePath will then look like this:
private static string GetFeatureFilePath(string featureName)
{
string startupPath = Environment.CurrentDirectory;
var splitStartupPath = startupPath.Split(new[] {"\\"}, StringSplitOptions.None);
var featureFolder = splitStartupPath[0] + #"\\" +
splitStartupPath[1] + #"\\" +
splitStartupPath[2] + #"\\" +
splitStartupPath[3] + #"\\" +
splitStartupPath[4] + #"\\" +
splitStartupPath[5] + #"\\Features\";
var dir = new DirectoryInfo(featureFolder);
foreach (var fi in dir.GetFiles())
{
if (fi.FullName.Contains(featureName))
return fi.FullName;
}
return "No Feature File Found With Title: " + featureName;
}
It grabs your current directory and splits it to the point where the Features folder should be. It then iterates through each feature file until it finds one that contains your feature title in its path name and returns that as a full path.
I'm not aware of any other way to get this currently.
I don't think knowing the path to the feature file will be possible, as the feature file is used to generate a file containing the unit tests and this is compiled and copied to the test run directory.
The simplest thing will be to set the files as part of the solution and then have them copied to the output directory when the project builds.
If you are using NUnit as the test framework then the files should be in the same directory as the tests are executing so you should just be able to load them without specifying any path, or using the Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location to findout where the code is actually executing.
If you are using MSTest then you need to add a [DeploymentItem(FileToDeploy)] attribute to the test to ensure that the file actually gets deployed with the tests when they are run. Unfortunately as Specflow generates the tests it won't add this for you. To solve this you need to create a partial class which has the same name as the class which contains the tests. This class is called the same as the feature with 'Feature' tagged on the end. So if you have this in your feature:
Feature: Do A Thing
The your test class will be called DoAThingFeature
so you need to create a partial class like this:
[DeploymentItem("FileToDeploy.ext")]
public partial class DoAThingFeature
{}
to ensure that MsTest copies the file you need to the correct directory.
Edit
based on your comment you could maybe do something similar to this
add tags to your feature #hasFiles #source:myFile.xlsx
Then you could add this class:
[Binding]
public class DeployFiles
{
[BeforeScenario("hasFiles")]
public void CopyFiles()
{
..in here find the current executing directory and search
..the subtree for any files defined in the
..ScenarioInfo.Tags array that start with `source:` and copy
..them to the current executing directory
}
}
then any scenario tagged with the #hasFiles will deploy any files specified by #source tags to the root directory where the tests are running.
Not pretty and I'm not certain it'll work, but it might.
maybe this could help you , in .net 4.5 you can get the hold of the path to the caller, take a look at this thread source path in .net 4.5

Visual Studio - Unit tests loading resources in the project

The goal is to run some tests given some data in those Xml files.
How would you easily load a given Xml file into an XmlDoc within the unit test methods?
Current state is:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
string xmlFile = "4.xml";
string dir = System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + #"\Msgs\"
//dir is then the value of the current exe's path, which is
//d:\sourcecode\myproject\TestResults\myComputer 2009-10-08 16_07_45\Out
//we actually need:
//d:\sourcecode\myproject\Msgs\
doc.Load( dir + fileName); //should really use System.IO.Path.Combine()!
Is it just a simple matter of putting that path in an app.config? I was hoping to avoid that, given the possibility of different paths on developer machines.
Question: How would you write the algorithm to load a given Xml file into an XmlDocument in the unit test method?
There is a Visual Studio Unit Testing feature for this: DeploymentItemAttribute
I use this feature to copy all xml files in a given project folder to the unit test output folder, before testing if all required files are present.
You can use this attribute with your unit tests to copy specific files from the Project folder (or anywhere else) to the Unit Test output folder. Like so:
[TestMethod()]
[DeploymentItem("MyProjectFolder\\SomeDataFolder\\somefile.txt", "SomeOutputSubdirectory")]
public void FindResourcefile_Test()
{
string fileName = "SomeOutputSubdirectory\\somefile.txt";
Assert.IsTrue(System.IO.File.Exists(fileName));
}
You can also copy the contents of whole folders:
[TestMethod()]
[DeploymentItem("MyProjectFolder\\SomeDataFolder\\", "SomeOutputSubdirectory")]
public void FindResourcefile_Test()
{
string fileName = "SomeOutputSubdirectory\\someOtherFile.txt";
Assert.IsTrue(System.IO.File.Exists(fileName));
}
The first parameter is the source, the second the destination folder. The source is relative to your solution folder (so you can access the Unit Test project of the project being tested) and the destination is relative to the output folder of the unit test assembly.
UPDATE:
You need to enable Deployment in the Test Settings for this to work. This MSDN page explains how (it's real easy): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182475(v=vs.90).aspx#EnableDisableDeploy
You can build those files into your executable (set their "Build Action" property to "Embedded Resource") and then get them using the Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream method.
In the unit test project add a post-build event that copies the XML file to the output directory. Then, you can use your original code to get the XML file.
The post build event will look like something like this:
copy $(SolutionDir)file.xml $(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)file.xml
You may also need this to add to your path:
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
I use a helper class to deal with getting basic paths I might want to access in my Unit Tests.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Brass9.Testing
{
public static class TestHelper
{
public static string GetBinPath()
{
return System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
}
public static string GetProjectPath()
{
string appRoot = GetBinPath();
var dir = new DirectoryInfo(appRoot).Parent.Parent.Parent;
var name = dir.Name;
return dir.FullName + #"\" + name + #"\";
}
public static string GetTestProjectPath()
{
string appRoot = GetBinPath();
var dir = new DirectoryInfo(appRoot).Parent.Parent;
return dir.FullName + #"\";
}
public static string GetMainProjectPath()
{
string testProjectPath = GetTestProjectPath();
// Just hope it ends in the standard .Tests, lop it off, done.
string path = testProjectPath.Substring(0, testProjectPath.Length - 7) + #"\";
return path;
}
}
}
Sometimes my interactions with paths are more complex; I often use a central class I name "App" to indicate some basic details about the application, like its root folder, its root namespace and module, etc. Classes will sometimes depend on App's existence, and so instead I'll place an init method on App that uses code like the above to initialize itself for test harnesses, and call that method from the Init command in a Unit Test.
(Updated)
Old Answer
I found this helps for getting arbitrary paths to access files in the project folder you intend to test (as opposed to files in the Test project folder, which can make busywork if you need to copy things over).
DirectoryInfo projectDir = new DirectoryInfo(#"..\..\..\ProjectName");
string projectDirPath = projectDir.FullName;
You can then use either of those variables to access whatever you need from the related project. Obviously swap "ProjectName" out for the actual name of your project.
Resources are just resources and that's it, no need to complicate. If you don't want to embed them then you could add these files as "Content" resources to your project and set them to Copy always. Then specify the sub-folder in your code:
var xmlDoc = XElement.Load("ProjectSubFolder\\Resource.xml");
This will automatically load the resources from the project output (running assembly location) bin\$(Configuration)\ResourceSubfolder\
This works for all types of projects, not just unit tests.
I would just put the path in the app.config and load from the default path. In my team, i am really anal about developers changing paths, so i make all my developers have the same exact paths and files on their computers, so i dont have an issue of any rogue developer changing a path to suite his workspace.
For example , all developers in my team must use C:\Project\Product\Module, etc etc. I also make sure all their software installed also is standard. This way, i can ghost any machine into any other easily.
I think in VS.NET 2012 DeploymentItem attribute works without any Test Settings configuration.

Changes in App.config do not reflect after restarting the application

I am using an app.config file to store the dynamic parameters of my application. The problem is, when I change a value in app.config file, and start the application, it doesn't load the new value from config file. Seems like the values in app.config file are being read and embedded in exe file only at compile time!
This is how I read the config file:
public class Helper
{
static Helper()
{
Foo = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Foo"];
}
public static string Foo { get; set; }
}
Am I missing something?
Are you sure you are changing the correct file? You don't want to change the app.config file, but the <exename>.exe.config file, in the same directory as the .exe
The app.config file is what you edit in the ide, but when you compile your app this file is renamed to <exename>.exe.config and copied to the output directory when you compile. The .exe looks for a file with the same name as itself with the .config extension when looking for the default configuration.
The static nature of your class and method may be causing you the issue. Maybe refactor it to the following...
public static class Helper
{
public static string Foo
{
get
{
return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Foo"];
}
}
}
Actually, thinking about it, it doesn't help you a great deal since ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Foo"] is already (effectively) a static call - you're just adding another layer of abstraction that may well not be required.

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