More On Unit Testing Controllers in the ASP.NET MVC Framework….

I mentioned in my earlier post:

Model-View-Presenter Seems Easier to Test Than ASP.NET MVC

that my experience to date for doing view testing has been with the Model-View-Presenter Pattern and mocking the View Interface with a mocking framework. I have been very happy with the experience and it has been pretty easy-to-do.

Some examples from Phil Haack showing examples of tests without using what he refers to as the Specific SubClass Pattern looked really ugly and a hell of a lot of work. It wasn’t fair to Phil for just copying and pasting his example and comparing it to a simple one I had written doing something different, my apologies on that, but my goal wasn’t to stack the deck in favor of Model-View-Presenter, but really just a call for help. I am treading on new ground with testing controllers in the ASP.NET MVC Framework and I could use some help in making it easier

Jeffrey provided an example of a test in the comments on the previous post. It looks to use the same Specific SubClass Pattern that Phil talks about in his post. I am now taking this pattern as somewhat of a best practice for testing controllers in the ASP.NET MVC Framework, because it came from such experts.

After playing with it all morning, I rather like the pattern and find the tests comparable to what I have experienced with MVP. Here are a couple I have been playing with modeled after what I have seen from Jeffrey and Phil:

[TestFixture]

public class CustomersControllerTextFixture

{

    [Test]

    public void ShouldReturnListOfCustomers()

    {

        MockRepository mocks = new MockRepository();

        ICustomersDataSource mockDataSource = mocks.CreateMock<ICustomersDataSource>();

        TestCustomersController controller = new TestCustomersController(mockDataSource);
        List<Customer> customers = new List<Customer>

        {

            new Customer(),

            new Customer(),

            new Customer()

        };
        Expect.Call(mockDataSource.SelectAll()).Return(customers);
        mocks.ReplayAll();

        controller.Index();

        mocks.VerifyAll();
        Assert.That(controller.ActualViewData, Is.EquivalentTo(customers));

        Assert.IsTrue(controller.ActualViewName.Equals(“Customers“));

    }
    [Test]

    public void SaveActionShouldRedirectToIndexAction()

    {

        MockRepository mocks = new MockRepository();

        ICustomersDataSource mockDataSource = mocks.CreateMock<ICustomersDataSource>();
        TestCustomersController controller = new TestCustomersController(mockDataSource);
        mocks.ReplayAll();
        controller.Save(“who“, “cares“);
        Assert.AreEqual(controller.RedirectToActionValues, “{ Action = Index }“);

    }

}

 with a TestCustomersController-

public class TestCustomersController : CustomersController

{

    public string ActualViewName;

    public string ActualMasterName;

    public object ActualViewData;

    public string RedirectToActionValues;

    public TestCustomersController(ICustomersDataSource dataSource)

        : base(dataSource) { }
    protected override void RenderView(string viewName, string masterName, object viewData)

    {

        ActualViewName = viewName;

        ActualMasterName = masterName;

        ActualViewData = viewData;

    }
    protected override void RedirectToAction(object values)

    {

        RedirectToActionValues = values.ToString();

    }

}

Again, I am just trying to get my arms around how to test this new web development environment, so don’t confuse this as expert testimonial. I would love to see more authorities on the subject provide some tutorials.