I have been trying to figure this one out, how do i test that a private method is called with rhino mocks with in the class that I am testing. So my class would be something like this.
Public class Foo
{
public bool DoSomething()
{
if(somevalue)
{
//DoSomething;
}
else
{
ReportFailure("Failure");
}
}
private void ReportFailure(string message)
{
//DoSomeStuff;
}
}
So my unit test is on class Foo and method DoSomething() I want to check and make sure that a certain message is passed to ReportFailure if somevalue is false, using rhino mocks.
There probably is a way to do this, but in most circumstances you don't want to do this. Your unit tests shouldn't depend on hidden implementations or code. Treat your classes as black boxes when you test them, where you only have access to changing the input and testing the output.
If you are testing private method execution, you are very likely diving too far into the implementation of a given class, and you're making it difficult to change your implementation down the road without breaking tests.
I agree with mjd79's answer, however if you're married to the idea of verifying that ReportFailure was called then you could change the protection level of the method to Internal, and set the InternalsVisibleTo attribute on your assembly so that it allows your unit tests to access it.
A better approach might be to mock whatever resource ReportFailure accesses, and verify that some public method on that mock is invoked.
Related
I'm new to Moq
I read a lot about Moq testing and that you shouldn't test your mock object, instead you should use Moq to stub dependencies and make it to act like you want to. But now I am asking myself, how can you test if a method be called from another method in the same class, like this code:
public class A // --> class i want to test
{
public virtual void TestMethod() // --> does it call testmethod2
{
TestMethod2();
}
public virtual void TestMethod2()
{
// Do something
}
}
I thought I can write the Unittest like this:
[TestMethod]
public void MyTestMethod()
{
Mock<A> aMock = new Mock<A>();
aMock.Verify(o => o.TestMethod2(), Times.Once);
aMock.TestMethod();
aMock.VerifyAll();
}
But is this valid? Thank you for all good answers!
Moq is only able to mock out methods which are virtual (or provide mock implementations for interfaces). If you try a Setup or Verify on a non-virtual member, you'll get the error
Invalid verify on a non-virtual member: m => m.TestMethod2()
In your case, you would need to change TestMethod2 to virtual, i.e.
public virtual void TestMethod2()
Which can then be tested:
var aMock = new Mock<A>();
aMock.Object.TestMethod();
aMock.Verify(m => m.TestMethod2(), Times.Once);
As you've suggested, testing whether a class calls methods internal to itself is a smell, indication that you're either
Testing internal implementation detail (e.g. if TestMethod2() was private, it's none of our business to even know about it).
Or, an indication that the Class / System under test is in need of refactoring into multiple classes, which should be loosely coupled, and hence can be isolated and better testable.
Note
You can't Verify a call before you've invoked the method on the SUT that you want to test, i.e. move the Verify to after the invocation of .TestMethod() as I've done.
Although you could change your code to use the Setup + VerifyAll approach to testing, i.e. ensuring that everything you've setup is actually invoked:
aMock.Setup(m => m.TestMethod2());
aMock.Object.TestMethod();
aMock.VerifyAll();
There is however debate around whether the usage of VerifyAll violates AAA principals (since you're also in effect specifying the Verify criteria in the Arrange piece), and I've also found that this approach makes it impossible to refactor and DRY up Mock setups in large scale tests, and you also lose some of the finer level of checking (e.g. Times.Once).
I have a method call that I am unit testing. Inside that method call it makes a call to a method that is going to throw an error because it is trying to talk to a device that will not be available when the unit test is running. Is there a way to avoid that internal method call from being called?
Environment: C# Visual Studio 2010 unit testing within IDE
If you're unit testing a class with external dependencies then you must isolate the external dependancies using an interface which is injected in.
interface IDevice
{
void Run();
}
interface IDeviceOperator
{
void Operate();
}
class DeviceOperator : IDeviceOperator
{
private readonly IDevice _device;
public DeviceOperator(IDevice device)
{
_device = device;
}
public void Operate()
{
_device.Run();
// test other stuff here
}
}
[TestFixture]
public class DeviceOperatorTests
{
[Test]
public void Test_DeviceOperator_Operate()
{
IDevice device = A.Fake<IDevice>(); // Using FakeItEasy 3rd party mocking framework syntax
DeviceOperator deviceOperator = new DeviceOperator(device);
deviceOperator.Operate();
}
}
When doing unit testing you have to create mocks or stubs for all your external dependencies. A framework that could help you with that is Moq (it is plenty of mock frameworks if you want to explore).
These mock or stubs are just facades providing necessary interactions and data to pass your tests.
We may be able to help you more if you provide more details about that unavailable device.
There's probably a better way, but once or twice I've been in this situation where a method calls another, complicated method, and put an optional parameter at the end of the method you're testing like
public void DoSomething(int number, bool skipMethod= false)
{
if(!skipMethod)
MethodThatWillBreak();
{
So that in the normal course of running, it'll be fine, but in your unit test you can do
DoSomething(2,true);
But really, it suggests that you need to do some refactoring of your code, because your unit test should only be hitting one "unit". If you can test the method without calling the MethodThatWillBreak then what is it doing there in the first place.
Check out Working Effectively with Legacy Code book by Michael Feathers - it have a lot of suggestions on dealing with code that does not have unit test yet.
Possible approaches covered in the book:
extract dependency in interface - ideal approach (see jamespconnor's answer)
use flag to bypass call (see Colm Prunty's answer)
extract that call into virtual method and override in derived class used in unit test
pass delegate (may be less impact than full interface/derivation)
Sample for deriving from the class:
public class WithComplexDependency
{
public void DoSomething()
{
// Extract original code into a virtual protected method
// dependency.MethodThatWillBreak();
CallMethodThatWillBreak();
}
virtual protected void CallMethodThatWillBreak()
{
dependency.MethodThatWillBreak();
}
}
in test code derive from the class and provide own implementation:
public class WithMockComplexDependency : WithComplexDependency
{
// may also need to add constructor to call original one.
override protected void CallMethodThatWillBreak()
{
// do whatever is needed for your test
}
}
...
WithComplexDependency testObject = new WithMockComplexDependency();
testObject.DoSomething(); // now does not call dependency.MethodThatWillBreak()
...
To unit test correctly you should decouple the comunication with the device from the class you want to test! Abstract the partetalking to the device in another class implementing an interface, inject the communication class in the ctor of the object under test, now you can inject a mock implementation from outside and avoid the errore,the mmock implementation can also log call made to it or respond in a predefined way easing test.
Read a out dependency injection and inversion of control
Typically you would extract external dependencies from the class you're testing and will swap them with fake ones in your unit test. You would isolate them and test the part that you're interested in. I recommend that you look into Inversion of Control as well as one of the many Mocking Frameworks (Moq, Rhino Mocks etc.)
You probably don't want to SKIP the external. Instead you want to isolate the external dependencies such as accessing external devices. There are many ways to do this
a. You can use a third part isolation framework such as Moq, or RhinoMock, etc
b. You can use Moles framework (since you are using VS2010) - replace a .NET method with a delegate
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/moles/
c. Paid isolation frameworks such as TypeMock.
d. Or simply hand written fake implementation which uses in interface and your test uses the Fake implementation.
I have a class as follows.
public class MyClass
{
public MyMethod()
{
int x = CalculateSomething();
}
private int CalculateSomething()
{
// Do something and return an int
return 100;
}
}
To unit test this I added [assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("MyTests")] and changed the private method to be internal virtual.
In the unit test project I created a class MockMyClass and created private method as follows.
public class MockMyClass : MyClass
{
public bool MadeHappyNoise {get; set;}
internal override int CalculateSomething()
{
MadeHappyNoise = true;
return base.CalculateSomething();
}
}
The unit test is now as follows
[TestMethod()]
public void WasCalculateSomethingCalledOK()
{
MockMyClass mk = new MockMyClass();
mk.MyMethod();
Assert.IsTrue(mk.MadeHappyNoise, "Oops...CalculateSomething not called...");
}
Few questions: Is this is a good way to remove dependencies? I personally don't like to change a method from private to internal but have no option (other than to use Reflection perhaps). Also, the attribute InternalsVisibleTo("MyTests") residing in the production code is not good. Can someone point me to a better solution please? Thanks.
It rather depends on the methods you are changing the scope of. A unit is the smallest testable component of a piece of software - it rarely means one test per method.
I find that comprehensively testing my public methods is enough to establish correct behaviour. You might find that your tests start to constrain your code development if you wrap the private methods with tests.
If your program is more procedural you might find that you need to test at the granular level you describe, in which case using friend assemblies is a fine solution. However, I'd suggest that you would rarely need to test methods that aren't public.
Too much work for too little value. All that test tells me (if it passes) is that calling MyMethod calls another private method. The unit test should be testing the behavior provided by MyMethod() - what should happen/change after a call to MyMethod?.
The title of the question is a bit misleading too - there is no dependency-related issue that I can see.
You do not need InternalsVisibleTo for the most part.. simply test the private method through the public method that exercises it e.g. Write unit tests for MyMethod(). Also if you practice test-first programming, you'd already have tests that cover every line of code in the private method.
Hmm. I have some issues with that code, but we'll do one at a time.
Why would you want to test if MyMethod calls CalculateSomething? It's an implementation detail that is probably likely to change (what if it calls CalculateSomething2 tomorrow but apart from that still does what it's supposed to do?). If you want to test the code structure of MyMethod, do a code review, not a unit test.
You say that MyMethod is complex and you want to test the code flow inside. If there are multiple paths inside, you still have to write a unit test for each path, so why can't you check the result of calling MyMethod instead of checking the inside of it?
Another thought would be to try and refactor MyMethod into methods that lend themselves to easier testing (that's almost automatic if you do test-driven-development, a practice I recommend if you want to do serious unit testing. The "test later" approach almost always leads to code that is much more difficult to test).
If you still want to check the inner workings of MyMethod, maybe you can refactor the private methods you need to check this into another class (say "Calculations" in your example).
Then you can use a mock framework (like RhinoMocks for example), to mock that class. The framework lets you define what functions you expect to be called in what order and what they should return.
Usually you use mocks to lessen the environment requirements for unit tests, but you can use them in this way also.
Can you maybe refactor it to be like this:
public class MyClass
{
private Calculator calculator;
public myMethod()
{
int x = calculateSomething();
}
public void SetCalculator( Calculator c ){
calculator = c;
}
private int calculateSomething()
{
return calculator.CalculateSomething();
}
}
And then have calculator as a separate class and set an instance on MyClass
public Class Calculator {
public virtual int CalculateSomething()
{
// Do something and return an int
return 100;
}
}
You could make Calculator implement an interface and then have a different Calculator implementation or a mock that you use in your tests.
If this is a piece of legacy code that you are too scared to touch, i would advise you to create a unit test which would construct MyClass. Tentatively create a public property in MyClass to expose the value of x.
In the unit test just created assert that value of x is 100 after MyClass is instantiated. Once you have that in place, refactor like #alb suggests. Run the test again, make sure x is still 100 and test the calculator class separately and eventually remove the tentative public property for x in MyClass. hope that helps.
Using Moq, I have a very odd issue where the setup on a mock only seems to work if the method I am setting up is public. I don't know if this is a Moq bug or if I just have this wrong (newbie to Moq). Here is the test case:
public class TestClass
{
public string Say()
{
return Hello();
}
internal virtual string Hello()
{
return "";
}
}
[TestMethod]
public void Say_WhenPublic_CallsHello()
{
Mock<TestClass> mock = new Mock<TestClass>();
mock.Setup(x => x.Hello()).Returns("Hello World");
string result = mock.Object.Say();
mock.Verify(x => x.Hello(), Times.Exactly(1));
Assert.AreEqual("Hello World", result);
}
Which fails with this message:
Say_WhenPublic_CallsHello failed: Moq.MockException:
Invocation was not performed on the mock 1 times: x => x.Hello()
at Moq.Mock.ThrowVerifyException(IProxyCall expected, Expression expression, Times times)...
If I make the Hello method public like this, the test passes. What is the issue here?
public virtual string Hello()
{
return "";
}
Thanks in advance!
The test fails when Hello() is internal because Moq cannot provide an override of the method in this case. This means that the internal implementation of Hello() will run, rather than mock's version, causing the Verify() to fail.
Incidentally, what you are doing here makes no sense in the context of a unit test. A unit test should not care that Say() calls an internal Hello() method. This is implementation internal to your assembly and not a concern of consuming code.
I don't know enough about how this works underneath the covers to give you a technical answer as to exactly why that is the behaviour, but I think I can help with your confusion.
In your example you are calling a method Say(), and it is returning the expected text. Your expectation should not enforce a particular implementation of Say() ie that it calls an internal method called Hello() to return that string. This is why it does not pass the verify, and also why the string returned is "", ie the actual implementation of Hello() has been called.
By making the Hello method public it appears that this has enabled Moq to intercept the call to it, and use it's implementation instead. Therefore, in this case the test appears to pass. However, in this scenario you haven't really achieved anything useful, because your test says that when you call Say() the result is "Hello World" when in acutal fact the result is "".
I have rewritten your example to show how I would expect Moq to be used (not necessarily definitive, but hopefully clear.
public interface IHelloProvider
{
string Hello();
}
public class TestClass
{
private readonly IHelloProvider _provider;
public TestClass(IHelloProvider provider)
{
_provider = provider;
}
public string Say()
{
return _provider.Hello();
}
}
[TestMethod]
public void WhenSayCallsHelloProviderAndReturnsResult()
{
//Given
Mock<IHelloProvider> mock = new Mock<IHelloProvider>();
TestClass concrete = new TestClass(mock.Object);
//Expect
mock.Setup(x => x.Hello()).Returns("Hello World");
//When
string result = concrete.Say();
//Then
mock.Verify(x => x.Hello(), Times.Exactly(1));
Assert.AreEqual("Hello World", result);
}
In my example, I have introduced an interface to an IHelloProvider. You will notice that there is no implementation of IHelloProvider. This is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve by using a mocking solution.
We are trying to test a class (TestClass), which is dependant on something external (IHelloProvider). If you are using Test Driven Development then you probably haven't written an IHelloProvider yet, but you are aware that you will need one at some point. You want to get TestClass working first though, rather than get distracted. Or perhaps IHelloProvider uses a database, or a flat file, or is difficult to configure.
Even if you have a fully working IHelloProvider, you are still only trying to test the behaviour of TestClass, so using a concrete HelloProvider is likely to make your test more prone to failure, for instance if there is a change to the behaviour of HelloProvider, you don't want to have to change the tests of every class that uses it, you just want to change the HelloProvider tests.
Getting back to the code, we now have a class TestClass, which is dependant on an interface IHelloProvider, the implementation of which is provided at construction time (this is dependency injection).
The behaviour of Say() is that it calls the method Hello() on the IHelloProvider.
If you look back at the test, we have created an actual TestClass object, since we actually want to test the code that we have written. We have created a Mock IHelloProvider, and said that we expect it to have it's Hello() method called, and when it does to return the string "Hello World".
We then call Say(), and verify the results as before.
The important thing to realise is that we are not interested in the behaviour of the IHelloProvider, and so we can mock it to make testing easier. We are interested in the behaviour of TestClass, so we have created an actual TestClass not a Mock, so that we can test it's actual behaviour.
I hope this has helped to clarify what is going on.
Moq doesn't do partial mocking and can only mock public virtual methods or interfaces. When you create a Mock you are creating a completely new T and removing all implementation of any public virtual methods.
My suggestion would be to concentrate on testing the public surface area of your objects and not their internals. Your internals will get coverage. Just make sure you have a clear idea of what your target class is and don't mock that (in most cases).
Partial mocking is only useful when you want to test the functionality of an abstract class with mocked implementations of abstract methods. If you aren't doing this, you are likely not going to see much benefit from doing a partial mock.
If this is not an abstract class, you will want to focus more on the approach Modan suggests, which is to say that you should mock dependencies rather than your target class itself. All of this boils down to the rule don't mock what you are testing.
How can I write a unit test for a method that has a using statement?
For example let assume that I have a method Foo.
public bool Foo()
{
using (IMyDisposableClass client = new MyDisposableClass())
{
return client.SomeOtherMethod();
}
}
How can I test something like the code above?
Sometimes I choose not to use using statement and Dispose() an object manually. I hope that someone will show me a trick I can use.
If you construct the IMyDisposableClass using a factory (injected into the parent class) rather than using the new keyword, you can mock the IMyDisposable and do a verify on the dispose method call.
public bool Foo()
{
using (IMyDisposableClass client = _myDisposableClassFactory.Create())
{
return client.SomeOtherMethod();
}
}
If you already have your code and are asking how to test it, then you're not writing your tests first...so aren't really doing TDD.
However, what you have here is a dependency. So the TDD approach would be to use Dependency Injection. This can be made easier using an IoC container like Unity.
When doing TDD "properly", your thought processes should run as follows in this sort of scenario:
I need to do a Foo
For this I will rely on an external dependency that will implement an interface (new or pre-existing) of IMyDisposableClass
Therefore I will inject an IMyDisposableClass into the class in which Foo is declared via its constructor
Then you would write one (or more) tests that fail, and only then would you be at the point where you were writing the Foo function body, and determine whether you needed to use a using block.
In reality you might well know that yes, you will use a using block. But part of the point of TDD is that you don't need to worry about that until you've proven (via tests) that you do need to use an object that requires this.
Once you've determined that you need to use a using block you would then want to write a test that fails - for example using something like Rhino Mocks to set an expectation that Dispose will get called on a mock object that implements IMyDisposableClass.
For example (using Rhino Mocks to mock IMyDisposableClass).
[TestFixture]
public class When_calling_Foo
{
[Test]
public void Should_call_Dispose()
{
IMyDisposableClass disposable = MockRepository
.GenerateMock<IMyDisposableClass>();
Stuff stuff = new Stuff(disposable);
stuff.Foo();
disposable.AssertWasCalled(x => x.Dispose());
}
}
Class in which your Foo function exists, with IMyDisposableClass injected as a dependency:
public class Stuff
{
private readonly IMyDisposableClass _client;
public Stuff(IMyDisposableClass client)
{
_client = client;
}
public bool Foo()
{
using (_client)
{
return _client.SomeOtherMethod();
}
}
}
And the interface IMyDisposableClass
public interface IMyDisposableClass : IDisposable
{
bool SomeOtherMethod();
}
Your question doesn't make sense. If you are using TDD, then you should already have a test for what you have written. Requirements, then tests, then design, then development. Either your code passes your tests, or it doesn't.
Now, if your question is how to unit test the above piece of code, then that's another question completely, and I think the other posters have answered it up there.
Sometimes I think there are more buzzwords than developers :)
Wrapper methods like that aren't unit-testable, because you can't specify the relevant preconditions or post-conditions.
To make the method testable, you'll have to pass an IMyDisposableClass instance into the method or into the class hosting Foo (and make the host class itself implement IDisposable), so you can use a test double instead of the real thing to verify any interactions with it.
Your question doesn't make sense. If you are doing TDD, then the method that you posted is already fully tested, otherwise it couldn't even exist in the first place. So, your question doesn't make sense.
If, on the other hand, the method that you posted does already exist, but isn't fully tested, then you aren't doing TDD anyway, and your question about TDD doesn't make sense, either.
In TDD, it is simply impossible for untested code to exist. Period.
You could also change the method signature to allow passing in a mock for unit testing. This would provide an alternative to using a factory, which would also need to be unit tested. DI into the method as opposed to the class constructor may be preferable here.
public bool Foo(IMyDisposableClass mock = null)
{
using (IMyDisposableClass client = mock ?? new MyDisposableClass())
{
return client.SomeOtherMethod();
}
}
If you are testing Foo, then you should be looking at the output of Foo, not worrying about the disposal of the class it is using internally.
If you want to test MyDisposableClass' dispose method to see if it is working, that should be a separate unit test built against MyDisposableClass.
You don't need to unit test the using { } block, since that is part of the language. You either trust that it's working, or don't use C#. :) I don't see the need to write a unit test to verify that Dispose() is being called.
Without a specification for Foo, how can we say how to test it?
Get the specification for Foo.
Write tests to ensure that it meets all specifications and requirements (or a reasonable subset- some functions could require practically infinite amounts of data to test).
I believe you have a second, implicit question in there - which is how to test that use of your MyDisposableClass correctly Disposes of the object when it is freed by exiting an using clause. This is a separate test issue, and shouldn't be combined with the test of Foo, since the specification of Foo shouldn't reference implementation specific details such as the use of your MyDisposabeClass.
I think the other posters have answered this question, so I won't further elaborate.