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Generate two object of the same mock

I'm using MoQ in C# to do some Unit tests/BDD tests, and I've often the need of generating the same object twice(because it will be potentially used in dictionary). Or something 99% the same but just with a different ID.
Is there a way to "clone" the Mock definition? Or to generate two objects with the same definition?

You should create a helper method that constructs that takes in some parameters to construct the Mock object.
[Test]
public void MyTest()
{
Mock<ITestObject> myMock = CreateObject(1);
ITestObject obj = myMock.Object;
}
private Mock<ITestObject> CreateObject(int id)
{
Mock<ITestObject> mock = new Mock<ITestObject>();
mock.SetupGet(o => o.ID).Returns(id);
return mock;
}
private interface ITestObject
{
int ID { get; set; }
}

If you just need a collection of data to unit test with, you may consider something like AutoFixture as well. It can work with Moq in the case of classes you want to mock. You teach AutoFixture how to create YourClass, and you can even set rules like "my IDs should be strings with capital letters and no more than X amount of them."
Then you'd just use autofixture.
var fixture = new Fixture();
var tetsClasses = fixture.CreateMany<TestClass>();
This is really just to give you an idea. You can do quite a but more with it, and it plays really well with Moq.
An alternative is to use a data builder pattern to create your data. So you could start with something simple and just keep adding onto it as you find new edge cases on how you need to build the data. Just build a fluent API on it and build the data however you want.
internal class TestClassBuilder<T> : where T : TestClass
{
int Id {get; set;}
public T WithId(int id)
{
this.Id = id;
return this;
}
public virtual T Build()
{
return new T()
{
if(this.Id)
Id = this.Id; // if you chose to set it, then assign it
else
Id = GetRandomId() // you can figure a solution here
}
}
}
Then call it like:
var stubOne = TestClassBuilder.WithId(1).Build();
You can extend it to build a list if you want.
I like fluent APIs on data builders, because you can start to tell your story with the methods you create, and it keeps your Arrange section neat and tidy.
Example:
var UnderAgeCustomer = new CustomerBuilder
.UnderAge
.WithFakeId
.InACrowd
.LooksYoung
.Build()
You could even add on
public static implicit operator T(TestClassBuilder<T> builder)
{
return builder.Build();
}
And you wouldn't need to use the .Build() part all the time (I think build adds unnecessary noise). Just don't try assigning that to a var, it won't work.
TestClass MockTwo = TestClassBuilder.WithId(2);
I would say you could also use a fixture pattern to track of all this ... but between that and the databuilder, you may as well use AutoFixture and Moq as I suggested :)

Mocking Registry and File System

If I am to write unit tests for reading/writing/creating registry entries or files, my understanding is that I should not be using real registry and file system but should mock them in a light weight manner.
What mocking framework would you recommend for mocking these in C# desktop/WPF style apps?
What would be a good introductory reading into this topic?

OK, here's an example.
Given these classes:
public interface IRegistryActions
{
bool WriteValue(string key, string value);
}
public class RegistryActions : IRegistryActions
{
public bool WriteValue(string key, string value)
{
// pseudocode
// var key = Registry.OpenKey(key);
// Registry.WriteValue(key, value);
}
}
And this class that uses them: the class which will perform the actions is passed to the constructor in this example, but could as easily be a property. This means that whenever you want to actually use the class in your actual code, you can explicitly pass a class that implements IRegistryActions as a parameter - e.g. var exampleClass = new ExampleClass(new RegistryActions()); - or alternatively default to the actual implementation if passed null, i.e. this.registryActions = registryActions ?? new RegistryActions();
public class ExampleClass
{
private IRegistryActions registryActions;
public ExampleClass(IRegistryActions registryActions)
{
this.registryActions = registryActions;
}
public bool WriteValue(string key, string value)
{
return registryActions.WriteValue(key, value);
}
}
So in your unit test you want to verify that the call is made with the right parameters. How exactly you do this depends on what mocking framework you use, which is generally either a matter of personal choice or you use what's already used.
[Test]
public void Test_Registry_Writes_Correct_Values()
{
string key = "foo";
string value = "bar";
// you would normally do this next bit in the Setup method or test class constructor rather than in the test itself
Mock<IRegistryActions> mock = MockFramework.CreateMock<IRegistryActions>();
var classToTest = new ExampleClass(mock); // some frameworks make you pass mock.Object
// Tell the mock what you expect to happen to it
mock.Expect(m => m.WriteValue(key, value));
// Call the action:
classToTest.WriteValue(key, value);
// Check the mock to make sure it happened:
mock.VerifyAll();
}
In this you're asserting that your class has called the correct method on the interface, and passed the correct values.

Mocking a class with private ctor and static create method and private id property

I am trying to use AutoFixture to simplify my life.
How do I mock a class with
non-public constructor and
non-public Id and
static 'Create' method?
Example
public class User
{
private User(){}
/// <summary>
/// Created by Database...
/// </summary>
public long? Id { get; protected set; }
public string Name { get; protected set; }
public static User Create(string name)
{
var user = new User {Name = name};
return user;
}
}
I've tried using a combo of Factory and SpecimenBuilder:
[Fact]
public void CreatingUserWithId_Should_Work_UsingFactoryAndSpecimenBuilder()
{
IFixture fixture = new Fixture().Customize(new AutoFakeItEasyCustomization());
fixture.Customizations.Add(new UserBuilder());
fixture.Customize<User>(o => o.FromFactory(() => User.Create("foo")));
var user = fixture.Create<User>();
user.Should().NotBeNull();
user.Id.Should().HaveValue();
}
with
public class UserBuilder : ISpecimenBuilder
{
public object Create(object request, ISpecimenContext context)
{
var pi = request as PropertyInfo;
if (pi == null) return new NoSpecimen(request);
// The following code only works for public properties... :-(
if (pi.Name == "Id" && pi.PropertyType == typeof (long?)) return 42;
return new NoSpecimen(request);
}
}
A demo C# solution is available at https://github.com/draptik/MockingStaticCreate
Thankful for any pointers,
Patrick

AF will do the right thing (User.Create() with an anonymous name arg) with no customizations whatsoever.
The only missing bit is setting the Id. Which is a question you'll have to answer for yourself -- how should your consuming code do this in the first place ? When you've decided, you could do fixture.Customize<User>( c => c.FromFactory( User.Create).Do( x => ???)
Perhaps you could consider exposing a ctor that takes an id too. Then you can do a Customize<User> ... GreedyConstructorQuery.
If your ORM is doing some wacky reflection and you like that and/or can't route around it you get to choose whether for your tests you should:
a) do that too - if that's relevant to a given test or set of tests
b) consider that to be something that just works
Regarding mixing mocking and feeding in of values to an Entity or Value object - Don't do that (Mark Seemann's Commands vs Queries article might help you here). The fact that you seem to be needing/wanting to do so makes it seems you're trying to be too ambitions in individual tests - are you finding the simplest thing to test and trying to have a single Assert testing one thing with minimal setup.
Go buy the GOOS book - it'll help you figure out ways of balancing these kinds of trade-offs.

Reflecting on a Moq Object produces 2 additional properties

I've got a couple of methods that use reflection to transform from one object type to another. I'm in the process of testing the transformation methods via Moq and have stumbled upon a behavior I don't know how to handle. When I reflect across a Moq object to obtain PropertyInfo's, I get two additional objects.
Moq.Mock``1[Namespace.Class+IElement] Mock
Moq.Mock Mock
The code to reproduce this is below:
public void Moq_Reflection() {
var realElement = new Stuff();
// Produces 2 items
PropertyInfo[] pInfo = realElement.GetType().GetProperties();
var mockElement = new Mock<IElement>();
mockElement.Setup(e => e.Property1).Returns(12);
mockElement.Setup(e => e.Property2).Returns(42);
// Produces 4 items
pInfo = mockElement.Object.GetType().GetProperties();
}
public interface IElement {
int Property1 { get; set; }
int Property2 { get; set; }
}
public class Stuff : IElement
{
public int Property1
{
get { return -1; }
set { }
}
public int Property2
{
get { return -2; }
set { }
}
}
Is there a way to Reflect on a Moq object and not retrieve these properties?

I was thinking about this more this afternoon, so here's another idea.
If I were coding this in my own project, I'd abstract out the reflection of the object. I'd create an interface that defines a contract for a class that will return the properties of an object, and then create a class that implements that interface by using reflection to return the set of properties. Same as what you're probably doing.
But then in the tests, I'd create a new implementation of the interface, but I'd add in whatever rules I needed to filter out unwanted properties on my mock objects. My live code wouldn't include any of the code necessary for testing.
I just had to get that idea out, just trying to help. Good luck!

I took a look at the code in LinqPad, and the only solution I could find to cut those two properties out was to exclude them based on whether PropertyType or Name included "Mock". For example:
pInfo.Where(item => item.PropertyType.ToString().Contains("Mock") == false);
pInfo.Where(item => item.Name.Contains("Mock") == false);
It's borderline hacky, but it's the only attribute I can find to filter. I don't think there's a way to filter the reflection itself.

C# Extension methods on "members"

I have some extension methods which could be used like this:
MyType myObject;
string displayName = myObject.GetDisplayName(x => x.Property);
The problem here is that it needs an instance, even if the extension method only needs the type MyType. So if there is no instance, it needs to be called like this:
string displayName = BlahBlahUtility.GetDisplayName((MyTpe x) => x.Property);
Which is not so nice anymore.
Is there a way to write better syntax for such cases?
What I actually want to do is this (pseudo language):
string displayName = MyType.Property.GetDisplayName()
Which of course does not work with C#.
But what about something like this:
string displayName = ((MyType x) => x.Property).GetDisplayName();
This is also not possible (after a lambda, a dot is not accepted).
Any ideas?
Edit:
My "favorite syntax" MyType.Property.GetDisplayName() seems to be misleading. I don't talk about static properties here. I know that this syntax won't be possible. I just tried to show in pseudo language, what information is necessary. This would be ideal, every additional stuff is just syntactical overhead. Any working syntax that is close to this would be great.
I don't want to write a certain extension method. I want an easy, readable and compile time safe syntax, using any language feature.

Have a look at the Express and Reflect classes in the Lokad Shared Libraries. Think they may help out with what you are trying to do. Read more here:
Strongly Typed Reflection in Lokad Shared
How to Find Out Variable or Parameter Name in C#?

From your comment: "I want an easy and compile time safe syntax to get information about members".
This is a very frequently requested feature and has been discussed in the C# team's meetings for about a decade, but has never been prioritised high enough to be included.
This blog post explains why:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2009/05/21/in-foof-we-trust-a-dialogue.aspx
So for now, you're just going to be fighting against a missing feature. Maybe you could post more information about your broader problem and see if people can suggest different approaches.
Update
Without more info about your problem this is just guesswork. But if you have a property that represents a value but also carries additional "meta" information, you could always represent that as a new type and use an "injection" step to set everything up.
Here's a suggested abstract interface to such a "meta property":
public interface IMetaProperty<TValue>
{
TValue Value { get; set; }
string DisplayName { get; }
event Action<TValue, TValue> ValueChanged;
}
The value of the property is just another sub-property, with its type defined by the user.
I've put in the display name, and also as a bonus you've got an event that fires when the value changes (so you get "observability" for free).
To have properties like this in a class, you'd declare it like this:
public class SomeClass
{
public IMetaProperty<string> FirstName { get; private set; }
public IMetaProperty<string> LastName { get; private set; }
public IMetaProperty<int> Age { get; private set; }
public SomeClass() { MetaProperty.Inject(this); }
}
Note how the setters on the properties are private. This stops anyone from accidentally setting the property itself instead of setting the Value sub-property.
So this means the class has to set up those properties so they aren't just null. It does this by calling a magic Inject method, which can work on any class:
public static class MetaProperty
{
// Make it convenient for us to fill in the meta information
private interface IMetaPropertyInit
{
string DisplayName { get; set; }
}
// Implementation of a meta-property
private class MetaPropertyImpl<TValue> : IMetaProperty<TValue>,
IMetaPropertyInit
{
private TValue _value;
public TValue Value
{
get { return _value; }
set
{
var old = _value;
_value = value;
ValueChanged(old, _value);
}
}
public string DisplayName { get; set; }
public event Action<TValue, TValue> ValueChanged = delegate { };
}
public static void Inject(object target)
{
// for each meta property...
foreach (var property in target.GetType().GetProperties()
.Where(p => p.PropertyType.IsGenericType &&
p.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition()
== typeof(IMetaProperty<>)))
{
// construct an implementation with the correct type
var impl = (IMetaPropertyInit)
typeof (MetaPropertyImpl<>).MakeGenericType(
property.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments()
).GetConstructor(Type.EmptyTypes).Invoke(null);
// initialize any meta info (could examine attributes...)
impl.DisplayName = property.Name;
// set the value
property.SetValue(target, impl, null);
}
}
}
It just uses reflection to find all the IMetaProperty slots hiding in the object, and fills them in with an implementation.
So now a user of SomeClass could say:
var sc = new SomeClass
{
FirstName = { Value = "Homer" },
LastName = { Value = "Simpson" },
Age = { Value = 38 },
};
Console.WriteLine(sc.FirstName.DisplayName + " = " + sc.FirstName.Value);
sc.Age.ValueChanged += (from, to) =>
Console.WriteLine("Age changed from " + from + " to " + to);
sc.Age.Value = 39;
// sc.Age = null; compiler would stop this
If you're already using an IOC container you may be able to achieve some of this without going directly to reflection.

It looks like you're trying to create a static extension method?
DateTime yesterday = DateTime.Yesterday(); // Static extension.
Instead of
DateTime yesterday = DateTime.Now.Yesterday(); // Extension on DateTime instance.
If this is what you're trying to pull off, I do not believe it is possible in the current version of C#.

It sounds like you are integrating layers a little too tightly. Normally in this type of situation I would let the presentation layer decide the implementation of GetDisplayName() instead of making it an extension of the property itself. You could create an interface called MyTypeDisplayer or whatever you fancy, and let there be multiple implementations of it not limiting you to a single display implementation.

The issue here is that one cannot get a reference to non-static methods via instance MyType.[Member]. These can only be seen through a reference to an instance of the type. You also cannot build an extension method on-top of a type declaration, only on an instance of a type - that is the extension method itself has to be defined using an instance of a type (this T x).
One can however define the expression like this to get a reference to static members:
((MyType x) => MyType.Property)
One could do something similar to string displayName = ((MyType x) => x.Property).GetDisplayName();
The first issue is guaranteeing that the compiler treats your (x=> x.Property) as an Expression rather than an action/func etc...
To do this one might need to do this:
string displayName = ((Expression<Func<PropertyType>>)((MyType x) => x.Property).GetDisplayName();
The extension method would then have to be defined like this:
public static string GetDisplayName<T>(this Expression<Func<T>> expression)
You might also have to define an extension method on top of Expression<Action>> and Expression<Action<T>> if your members are also methods.
You can do a dot after an Expression - this is where the Compile method would reside.
Appended:
I think the static call to the extension method in cases that one doesn't have an instance of the type one needs to do "reflection" on to determine a Members name would be the cleanest syntax still - this way you could still use the extension method when using an instance of a type and fall back to the static call definition => MyExtensionClass.GetDisplayName(TypeOfX x => TypeOfX.StaticMember OR x.Property/Member) when one doesn't have an instance

If you interface your properties, you could make the extension on the interface instead:
namespace Linq1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
MyType o = new MyType();
o.Property.GetDisplayName();
}
}
public class MyType
{
public IDisplayableProperty Property { get; set; }
}
public interface IDisplayableProperty
{
string GetText();
}
public class MyProperty1 : IDisplayableProperty
{
public string GetText() { return "MyProperty2"; }
}
public class MyProperty2 : IDisplayableProperty
{
public string GetText() { return "MyProperty2"; }
}
public static class Extensions
{
public static string GetDisplayName(this IDisplayableProperty o)
{
return o.GetText();
}
}
}