The full source of the BENUG presentation is available for download at http://blog.dotnetwiki.org/downloads/benug.package.zip

The file contains the two presentation I did (TFU.pdf and DPF.pdf in the Showtime folder), the CodeSmith templates and the sample project solution. The first presentation gave a quick introduction to unit testing tools + basic database testing. The second paper presented a new way of handling database testing through intelligent data generators (Database Populator Framework).

If you want to do the exercise of the DPF presentation, you should install TestDriven.Net....msi on your machine. Make sure you remove NUnitAddIn before doing that. This file is a special build of NUnitAddIn (now named TestDriven.Net) that ships with MbUnit.

The full source of the BENUG presentation is available for download at http://blog.dotnetwiki.org/downloads/benug.package.zip

The file contains the two presentation I did (TFU.pdf and DPF.pdf in the Showtime folder), the CodeSmith templates and the sample project solution. The first presentation gave a quick introduction to unit testing tools + basic database testing. The second paper presented a new way of handling database testing through intelligent data generators (Database Populator Framework).

If you want to do the exercise of the DPF presentation, you should install TestDriven.Net....msi on your machine. Make sure you remove NUnitAddIn before doing that. This file is a special build of NUnitAddIn (now named TestDriven.Net) that ships with MbUnit.

This addin explores a Typed DataSet generated by the Visual Studio and creates the table structure. For the example, selecting the NorthwindDataSet, you will get this output:

This addin explores a Typed DataSet generated by the Visual Studio and creates the table structure. For the example, selecting the NorthwindDataSet, you will get this output:

Reflector.Graph now builds and diplays the list of available addins and their menu location. Look for the Tools -> List of Reflector.Graph Addins menu item.

The TestFu Database Populator Framework (DPF presented here) is a framework for generating data for database testing. Given a DataSet, the framework can build a "smart" data generator to you can later use in your databse testing. I will present this at BENUG on sep. 9.

Why this framework ?

When you try to apply unit testing to database, you choices are not much: use transaction - clean up you "mess" after each test or even worse backup and restore the database on each test. In fact, there is an intrisic problem with unit testing of database: you cannot ensure the atomicity of each test, i.e. you cannot leave a database in the state that it was prior to the test (you could by restoring the db  from file at each test, but this is costly).

For example, transaction through enterprise services (see Roy's Rollback attribute) works great... but if you are using IDENTITY columns, then the identity counter is not reseted by the transaction and thus, the test case are correlated.

Now, what if we wanted to build unit tests for database that would not require clean up. This would mean that new data should be generated at each execution, since the previous execution would not have been cleaned up. This is where DPF comes into the picture: the DPF engine will generate new data for each of your unit test execution at no cost.

Generating random data is not difficult

That's true, the System.Random class is easy to use. However, things gets (a bit) more complicated when you generate data for database because you have to ensure that integrity constraint are enforced. This is why you will need such framework.

DPF How-to

The DPF totally relies on DataSet and comes with a few CodeSmith templates to accelerate development. The following how-to could be applied to any of your database.

1. If not done yet, create the strongly-typed DataSet of your database. You can do this by adding a new Typed DataSet to your project and drag and drop the tables in the designer. (Make sure VS has imported the constraint).
2. Open the DatabasePopulator.cst template. This template willl create a "strongly typed" database populator for a given database,
    
   where
   • Database will let you choose a database available on your machine, select the target database here,
   • Namespace  is the namespace of the strongly typed generator class,
   • TableNamePrefix is the table prefix in your database (in case there is one). This prefix will be trimmed to create the class names
3. Open the CrudPopulator.cst template and edit it in order to match the way your DAL access the database. This template will generate populator class that can apply CRUD operation to your database. You can also directly use that template and edit each "throw new NotImplementedException()" statement. (I strongly suggest you edit it the template for your needs).
4. Open the DatabasePopulatorTest.cst tempate and generate a fixture. This template will generate a fixture that will test each CRUD operation of each table in the database. The data necessary to those tests will be automatically generated by the populator.

Jamie Cansdale has also started to build new Reflector.Graph addins. This new addin creates a simple UML-like class diagram around the selected type.

Some facts:

• All the nodes of the graph are clickable wich makes it an easy way of navigation the type hierachy,
• Base class is marked in blue, which a filled arrow
• Methods and properties are marked with + (public), - (private), # (protected) and @ (internal)

Congrats Jamie!

Reflector version: 4.1.4.0
Reflector.Graph version: 4.1.4.0
Download: www.dotnetwiki.org

Before getting the new version, make sure you have a look at the release notes below!

New Addins

• StatementGraph (FlowGraph),
• Automatic Unit Test Generator (using the StatementGraph),
• Method Invokation Graph

This is the first release of the statement graph. It is surely not perfect. If you find anomalies in your graph, please prepare a code example that shows the problem and send it to me :)

TestFixtureSetUp and TestFixtureTearDown

MbUnit now supports TestFixtureSetUp and TestFixtuteTearDown attribute to mark methods to be executed at the beginning of a fixture test case execution and at the end.

[TestFixture]
public class Fixture
{
    [TestFixtureSetUp]
    public void TestFixtureSetUp()
    {...}

    ...

    [TestFixturteTearDown]
    public void TestFixtureTearDown()
    {...}
}

• Both method are optional and are allowed once per class,
• If TestFixtureSetUp invocation fails, no test case are executed and they are all marked as failures,
• TestFixtureTearDown is always invoked,
• If TestFixtureTearDown fails, all the test cases are marked as failure
• TestFixtureSetUp and TestFixtureTearDown are executed on the same instance. This is not ensured for the other methods,
• Output in those methods are recorded in the reports

AssemblyCleanUp, SetUp and TearDown

MbUnit also support test assembly setup and teardown. Those methods should be enclosed in a class that is feeded to the AssemblyCleanUpAttribute (Assembly attribute, thanks Omer), They must be public and static. The setup method must be tagged with SetUpAttribute, and the teardown method with TearDownAttribute:

[assembly: AssemblyCleanUp(typeof(AssemblyCleaner))]
...
public class AssemblyCleaner
{
    [SetUp]
    public static void SetUp()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Setting up {0}", typeof(AssemblyCleanUp).Assembly.FullName);
    }
    [TearDown]
    public static void TearDown()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Cleaning up {0}", typeof(AssemblyCleanUp).Assembly.FullName);
    }
}

• Only one class with AssemblyCleanUp per assembly is authorized,
• Both methods are optional,
• If SetUp fails, no tests are run and they are all marked as failure,
• TearDown is always executed.
• If TearDown fails, all the tests are marked as failure

This new Reflector.Addin creates a Method Graph where the vertex are methods, and the edges represent an invokation of a method. By clicking on the vertices, you jump to the next method, while keeping record of your previous steps.

Let's see this on FileStream.WriteByte method as shown above. The figure above is generated by right-clicking on the FileStream method and selecting "Method Invokation Graph". If I choose to to click FlushRight, the graph changes to: