Correct work with exceptions - c#

For example, I have the following method:
public void MeetingNoteSave(int MeetingID, string note, bool IsInviter, string Username)
{
meeting = Get<Meeting>(p => p.MeetingID == MeetingID && p.UserInviter.aspnet_User.UserName == Username);
MeetingNoteSaveCheckings(meeting, MeetingID);
// some actions here
}
void MeetingNoteSaveCheckings(Meeting meeting, int MeetingID)
{
DateTime currentDateWithTime = DateTime.Now;
if (meeting == null)
{
throw new Exception("Meeting does not exist. MeetingID=" + MeetingID);
}
DateTime meetingTime = meeting.MeetingTime.Day.AddHours(meeting.MeetingTime.Hour).AddMinutes(meeting.MeetingTime.Minute);
if (meetingTime > currentDateWithTime)
{
throw new Exception("Meeting is future. MeetingID=" + MeetingID + ". Meeting time = '" + meetingTime + "', Current time='" + currentDateWithTime + "'");
}
}
so, method can throw 2 exceptions - when meeting not exists with such parameters at all or when time of meeting more than current time (should be past or current).
Now, I'm writting Unit Tests. Simple method:
[TestMethod]
public void MeetingNoteSave()
{
_repository.MeetingNoteSave(1, "My note", true, "xxx#xxx.com");
}
Of course, call unit test will be fail with some parameters. I want to catch these cases, so, test should be success. I can do by 2 ways. First is simple, but a little dirty:
try
{
_repository.MeetingNoteSave(1, "My note", true, "xxx#xxx.com");
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
if (ex.Message.IndexOf("Meeting does not exist")>=0)
{
// some actions
}
if (ex.Message.IndexOf("Meeting is future")>=0)
{
// some actions
}
}
so, test will be success with incorrect input parameters (so, unit test can be used to test method with incorrect parameters), but fail with encountered errors. Good.
Other way - create special dummy exceptions like MeetingNullException and MeetingFutureException
public class MeetingNullException : Exception
{
}
public class MeetingFutureException : Exception
{
}
throw them and catch them. More correctly, but much more code. Dummy code.
Which way is more correctly?

Neither, they're both flawed. Your second approach is in the right direction though: you should avoid throwing general exceptions of type Exception; specific subclasses are much more expressive.
What you have to do in your tests then is use the [ExpectedException] attribute which will make them look like this:
[TestMethod]
[ExpectedException(typeof(MeetingNullException))]
public void MeetingNoteSave_WithNotExistingMeeting()
{
_repository.MeetingNoteSave(1, "My note", true, "xxx#xxx.com");
}
[TestMethod]
[ExpectedException(typeof(MeetingFutureException ))]
public void MeetingNoteSave_WithFutureDate()
{
_repository.MeetingNoteSave(1, "My note", true, "xxx#xxx.com");
}
Make sure you only have one test for each possible flow of your program: 2 exceptions means 2 tests. Personally I might avoid creating the specific subclasses and just use ArgumentException but that's up to you to decide. If you have expressive test names and the code is sufficiently self documenting, you'll know what argument is being referred to anyway.

Related

Exception message in xunit includes parameter so my test fails

I am trying to check that an exception that I throw gives the correct error message.
I have a method in a class that withdraws (substracts) from a value. If the value is less than 0, I throw an exception.
if (amount < 0)
{
throw new System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException("amount", AmountLessThanZeroMessage);
}
This is my error message:
public const string AmountLessThanZeroMessage = "Amount is less than zero";
However, when I try to write a unit test to see if I get the correct message, it fails because of the parameter. This is the test:
[Fact]
public void CannotWithdrawLessThanZero()
{
// Arrange
var account = new Account("User", 23);
// Act
account.DepositCash(100);
var thrownException = Assert.Throws<ArgumentOutOfRangeException>(() => account.WithdrawCash(-10));
// Assert
Assert.Equal(Account.AmountLessThanZeroMessage, thrownException.Message);
}
The result includes the parameter in the end, resulting in a failed test:
It seems the actual message includes which parameter it refers to. How do I correct this message? Should I just add the line (Parameter 'amount') to the expected string, or are there any better options?
You can create the exact same exception and use its message property. Like the code below
[Fact]
public void CannotWithdrawLessThanZero()
{
// Arrange
var account = new Account("User", 23);
var expectedException = new System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException("amount", AmountLessThanZeroMessage);
// Act
account.DepositCash(100);
var thrownException = Assert.Throws<ArgumentOutOfRangeException>(() => account.WithdrawCash(-10));
// Assert
Assert.Equal(expectedException.Message, thrownException.Message);
}
Messages changes often, message can be localized, so testing message equality will make tests more fragile.
Instead you can test that correct exception type was thrown, or even better and create domain specific exception to be sure that exception have been thrown for correct reasons.
public class WithdrawOfNegativeAmountNotAllowedException : Exception
{
public WithdrawOfNegativeAmountNotAllowedException(int amount)
: base($"Amount is less than zero ({amount})")
{
}
}
[Fact]
public void Cannot_withdraw_less_than_zero()
{
var account = new Account("User", 23);
account.DepositCash(100);
Action withdraw = () => account.WithdrawCash(-10);
withdraw.Should().Throw<WithdrawOfNegativeAmountNotAllowedException>();
}
In case you still want to test for correct message. Assertions of strings can be done in multiple ways, I would suggest to make assertion as loose as possible.
Test for part of the message which unlikely will change. For example test that message starts with some text or contain critical value.
[Fact]
public void Cannot_withdraw_less_than_zero()
{
var account = new Account("User", 23);
account.DepositCash(100);
Action withdraw = () => account.WithdrawCash(-10);
withdraw.Should()
.Throw<WithdrawOfNegativeAmountNotAllowedException>()
.And
.Message.Should().ContainEquivalentOf("Amount is less than zero");
}

Selenium C# continue on failure

I'm trying to learn automation with Selenium Webdriver using c#. I have my custom method Assert. What I did to continue the test after catching an AssertFailedException is using try-catch below is my code
public static void assert(string value, IWebElement element)
{
try
{
Assert.AreEqual(value, element.Text);
}
catch (AssertFailedException e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.Message.ToString());
}
}
My problem is it catches all AssertFailedException(which is my goal) but the result of the test is PASSED in visual studio. My question is, how do I implement Continue on Failure and Fail the test if the Console contains Exceptions. Thankyou in advance guys!
As far as I understand, you want to do several checks inside your test, and at the very end of it to determine whether any of of them failed. You may need to write some custom code to achieve this. For example, you may introduce a class Assertion:
internal class Assertion
{
private readonly string title;
private readonly object expected;
private readonly object actual;
public Assertion(string title, object expected, object actual)
{
this.title = title;
this.expected = expected;
this.actual = actual;
}
public bool IsMatch()
{
return this.actual == this.expected;
}
public override string ToString()
{
return $"Title: {title}. Expected: {expected}. Actual: {actual}";
}
}
When your test is running, you will create new instances of Assertion class and store them in a list. At the end of the test, you can use the following method:
private static void VerifyAssertions(Assertion[] assertions)
{
var failedAssertions = assertions.Where(a => !a.IsMatch()).ToArray();
if (failedAssertions.Any())
{
throw new AssertFailedException(string.Join<Assertion>("; ", failedAssertions));
}
}
You could try using verify instead of assert for minor checks. Assert by default indicates a major checkpoint and script execution will be terminated on fail and if you catch that exception the reporting will be ignored - this is expected behaviour. However, a verify indicates that the script can continue even on fail - in this case the failed step will be reported and the script will continue.
To put it simply, use assert when you don't want the script to proceed on failure and use verify when you want the script to report the failure and proceed.

How do I verify whether one of two methods has been called?

I am using Moq to verify if a method is being called in my unittest. In this specific case I want to test if the method under test logs an Error through log4net. The problem is, this can be done by either calling log.Error or log.ErrorFormat. Either is fine.
How can I verify this though? I only know how to verify that they have both been called.
var logMock = new Mock<ILog>();
var myClass = new MyClass(logMock.Object);
myClass.MyMethod();
logMock.Verify(log => log.Error(It.IsAny<object>()));
logMock.Verify(log => log.ErrorFormat(It.IsAny<string>(), It.IsAny<object>()));
Now that I think of it, they both have a bunch of overloads, I don't mind if any of the overloads are called either (I'm starting to doubt this is a good test).
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: I just thought of something nasty:
try
{
logMock.Verify(log => log.Error(It.IsAny<object>()));
}
catch (Moq.MockException ex)
{
logMock.Verify(log => log.ErrorFormat(It.IsAny<string>(), It.IsAny<object>()));
}
Maybe I can wrap this in some kind of extension method... e.g. VerifyAny.
You could register a callback for each valid error method that sets a flag:
// Arrange
bool errorFlag = false;
logMock
.Setup(l => l.Error(It.IsAny<object>()))
.Callback((object o) => errorFlag = true);
/* repeat setup for each logMock method */
// Act
myClass.MyMethod();
// Assert
Assert.IsTrue(errorFlag);
Of course, this will still be tedious if you have many overloads to cover.
EDIT: And for fun, here's an extension method for Mock<T>.VerifyAny:
public static class MockExtensions
{
public static void VerifyAny<T>(this Mock<T> mock, params Expression<Action<T>>[] expressions)
where T: class
{
List<MockException> exceptions = new List<MockException>();
bool success = false;
foreach (var expression in expressions)
{
try
{
mock.Verify(expression);
success = true;
break;
}
catch (MockException ex)
{
exceptions.Add(ex);
}
}
if (!success)
{
throw new AggregateException("None of the specified methods were invoked.", exceptions);
}
}
}
Usage:
[TestMethod]
public void FooTest()
{
Mock<IFoo> fooMock = new Mock<IFoo>();
fooMock.Object.Bar1();
fooMock.VerifyAny(
f => f.Bar1(),
f => f.Bar2());
}
if you are specifically testing that a specific error was logged, why not have 2 tests, one that ensure that log.Error is called and one that ensure that log.ErrorFormat is called, I am assuming that you can control which one is called based on the input.
if you still wanna verify one or the other, you can just use this approach, it does exactly what you need:
Verify that either one method or the other was invoked in a unit test

How do I check "no exception occurred" in my MSTest unit test?

I'm writing a unit test for this one method which returns "void". I would like to have one case that the test passes when there is no exception thrown. How do I write that in C#?
Assert.IsTrue(????)
(My guess is this is how I should check, but what goes into "???")
I hope my question is clear enough.
Your unit test will fail anyway if an exception is thrown - you don't need to put in a special assert.
This is one of the few scenarios where you will see unit tests with no assertions at all - the test will implicitly fail if an exception is raised.
However, if you really did want to write an assertion for this - perhaps to be able to catch the exception and report "expected no exception but got this...", you can do this:
[Test]
public void TestNoExceptionIsThrownByMethodUnderTest()
{
var myObject = new MyObject();
try
{
myObject.MethodUnderTest();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Assert.Fail("Expected no exception, but got: " + ex.Message);
}
}
(the above is an example for NUnit, but the same holds true for MSTest)
In NUnit, you can use:
Assert.DoesNotThrow(<expression>);
to assert that your code does not throw an exception. Although the test would fail if an exception is thrown even if there was no Assert around it, the value of this approach is that you can then distinguish between unmet expectations and bugs in your tests, and you have the option of adding a custom message that will be displayed in your test output. A well-worded test output can help you locate errors in your code that have caused a test to fail.
I think it's valid to add tests to ensure that your code is not throwing exceptions; for example, imagine you are validating input and need to convert an incoming string to a long. There may be occasions when the string is null, and this is acceptable, so you want to ensure that the string conversion does not throw an exception. There will therefore be code to handle this occasion, and if you haven't written a test for it you will be missing coverage around an important piece of logic.
This helper class scratched my itch with MSTest. Maybe it can scratch yours also.
[TestMethod]
public void ScheduleItsIneligibilityJob_HasValid_CronSchedule()
{
// Arrange
var factory = new StdSchedulerFactory();
IScheduler scheduler = factory.GetScheduler();
// Assert
AssertEx.NoExceptionThrown<FormatException>(() =>
// Act
_service.ScheduleJob(scheduler)
);
}
public sealed class AssertEx
{
public static void NoExceptionThrown<T>(Action a) where T:Exception
{
try
{
a();
}
catch (T)
{
Assert.Fail("Expected no {0} to be thrown", typeof(T).Name);
}
}
}
Don't test that something doesn't happen. It's like assuring that code doesn't break. That's sort of implied, we all strive for non-breaking, bug-less code. You want to write tests for that? Why just one method? Don't you want all your methods being tested that they don't throw some exception? Following that road, you'll end up with one extra, dummy, assert-less test for every method in your code base. It brings no value.
Of course, if your requirement is to verify method does catch exceptions, you do test that (or reversing it a bit; test that it does not throw what it is supposed to catch).
However, the general approach/practices remain intact - you don't write tests for some artificial/vague requirements that are out of scope of tested code (and testing that "it works" or "doesn't throw" is usually an example of such - especially in scenario when method's responsibilities are well known).
To put it simple - focus on what your code has to do and test for that.
I like to see an Assert.Whatever at the end of each test, just for consistency... without one, can I really be sure there's not supposed to be one there?
For me, this is as simple as putting Assert.IsTrue(true);
I know I didn't accidentally put that code in there, and thus I should be confident enough at quick a skim through that this was as intended.
[TestMethod]
public void ProjectRejectsGappedVersioningByDefault() {
var files = new List<ScriptFile>();
files.Add(ScriptProjectTestMocks.GetVersion1to2());
files.Add(ScriptProjectTestMocks.GetVersion3to4());
Assert.Throws<ScriptProject.InvalidProjectFormatException>(() => {
var sut = new ScriptProject(files);
});
}
[TestMethod]
public void ProjectAcceptsGappedVersionsExplicitly() {
var files = new List<ScriptFile>();
files.Add(ScriptProjectTestMocks.GetVersion1to2());
files.Add(ScriptProjectTestMocks.GetVersion3to4());
var sut = new ScriptProject(files, true);
Assert.IsTrue(true); // Assert.Pass() would be nicer... build it in if you like
}
My friend Tim told me about ExpectedException. I really like this b/c it is more succinct, less code, and very explicit that you are testing for an exception.
[TestMethod()]
[ExpectedException(typeof(System.Exception))]
public void DivideTest()
{
int numerator = 4;
int denominator = 0;
int actual = numerator / denominator;
}
You can read way more about it here: ExpectedException Attribute Usage.
With Xunit you can use this:
var exception = Record.Exception(() =>
MethodUnderTest());
Assert.Null(exception);
or for async operations
var exception = await Record.ExceptionAsync(async () =>
await MethodUnderTestAsync());
Assert.Null(exception);
Another way which worked for me is to store it in a variable and check output.
var result = service.Run()
Assert.IsFalse(result.Errors.Any())
using Moq;
using Xunit;
[Fact]
public void UnitTest_DoesNotThrow_Exception()
{
var builder = new Mock<ISomething>().Object;
//Act
var exception = Record.Exception(() => builder.SomeMethod());
//Assert
Assert.Null(exception);
}

Unit test not reaching a piece of code

I am new to unit testing. I want to do something as follows:
[Test]
[ExpectedException(ExceptionType = typeof(Exception))]
public void TestDeleteCategoryAssociatedToTest()
{
Category category = CategoryHelper.Create("category", Project1);
User user;
Test test1 = IssueHelper.Create(Project1, "summary1", "description1", user);
test1.Category = category;
category.Delete(user);
Assert.IsNotNull(Category.Load(category.ID));
Assert.IsNotNull(Test.Load(test1.ID).Category);
}
My aim here is to test that the category wasn't deleted by doing the Assert.IsNotNull()... but since it's throwing the exception, it's not reaching that piece of code. Any idea how I can improve on the above test?
Actually in my API I throw an exception in case the category is associated to a Test...
My snippet is:
IList<Test> tests= Test.LoadForCategory(this);
if (tests.Count > 0)
{
throw new Exception("Category '" + this.Name + "' could not be deleted because it has items assigned to it.");
}
else
{
base.Delete();
foreach (Test test in tests)
{
test.Category = null;
}
}
Try and test only one functionality per test. IOW write separate success and failure tests.
You could do something like:
[Test]
public void TestDeleteCategoryAssociatedToTest()
{
// Arrange
Category category = CategoryHelper.Create("category", Project1);
User user;
Test test1 = IssueHelper.Create(Project1, "summary1", "description1", user);
test1.Category = category;
try
{
// Act
category.Delete(user);
// Assert
Assert.Fail("The Delete method did not throw an exception.");
}
catch
{
Assert.IsNotNull(Category.Load(category.ID));
Assert.IsNotNull(Test.Load(test1.ID).Category);
}
}
The Assert.Fail() tells, that the Unit Test shall fail, if no exception has been thrown.
In case of an exception you can do other checks, like shown above.

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