NoSQL - How to mock database for unit testing? - c#

I'm researching NoSQL databases and have a question regarding unit testing. What is the appropriate method to unit test the business logic? How does one mock a NoSQL database?

Your business logic should not touch the database directly, but rather go through a database access layer. This lets you mock that intermediate layer for unit testing. To do this, you can use dependency injection and mocking. There are frameworks that can help you with both of these things, but you can also do it by hand. Here's an example:
Say we have a DAL:
public class DBDataProvider: IDataProvider
{
public string getData()
{
//SQL to get data from actual database.
}
}
As you can see, this implements an interface for something that provides data for your business layer. It might look something like this:
public Interface IDataProvider
{
String getData();
}
Your business layer might look something like this:
public BusinessClass
{
private IDataProvider dataProvider;
public BusinessClass()
{
dataProvider = new DBDataProvider();
}
public BusinessClass(IDataProvider provider)
{
dataProvider = provider;
}
public void doBusinessStuff()
{
dataProvider.getData();
//Do something with data.
}
}
So now in your production code, you will make your business class using the default constructor, which will automatically make your class with a connection to the DB. However, notice that we can create a BusinessClass with an IDataProvider that we specify. So, you can make a "fake" data provider just for testing:
public class MockDataProvider: IDataProvider
{
public string getData()
{
//return some expected result that you can control, without doing a DB call.
}
}
Now in your test, you can create a new MockDataProvider, and pass that into the constructor for BusinessClass. Your business class will now use your mock data provider, instead of the real DB.
Here I did everything by hand, but it gives you an idea of how this works. In real life, you can use mocking and dependency injection frameworks to write a bunch of that code for you.

The same way you mock any dependency. Write a nice, neat contract from which implementation details can be abstracted away, then mock that contract. Typically this is done by using the Data Access Layer as the contract(s).
Without getting into real implementation details, lets say you have a query in your method you want to test: (note, i copied this code from a ravenDB example, but i know 0 about ravenDB, so it might not even compile)
public void SomeMethod()
{
var name = "Hello";
var motto = "World";
using (var docStore = new DocumentStore("localhost", 8080).Initialize())
using (var session = documentStore.OpenSession()){
session.Store(new Company { Name = name, Motto = motto });;
session.SaveChanges();
}
}
That's going to be pretty hard to mock / test because it requires a db on localhost on 8080. Now, if you separate this logic out into another class:
public class AwesomeDAL
public virtual void AddCompany(string name, string motto){
using (var docStore = new DocumentStore("localhost", 8080).Initialize())
using (var session = documentStore.OpenSession()){
session.Store(new Company { Name = name, Motto = motto });;
session.SaveChanges();
}
}
and allow for the injection of the dependency (AwesomeDal):
public class ClassBeingTested
{
public AwesomeDal DAL { get; set; }
public ClassBeingTested() : this(new AwesomeDal()){}
public ClassBeingTested(AwesomeDal dal)
{
this.DAL = dal;
}
public void SomeMethod()
{
var name = "Hello";
var motto = "World";
this.DAL.AddCompany(name, motto);
}
}
And you can now test the BL code in isolation. Or you can simulate database exceptions, or anything else you need to test because your data access layer is abstracted, and its implementation is easily mockable with a framework like Moq or RhinoMocks

In addition to the already posted (correct) answers, let me propose an alternative solution: Use a real development database! Nothing is a more realistic mock that the real thing. If you test on it directly, at least you know that your code will actually run.
If you can abstract away your database easily, I recommend doing that, though.

Related

Unit testing database using EF

How does one unit test a service which connects to a database?
I have a playerRepository class in data access layer, which interacts with the database directly, and a playerService class in business layer which creates an instance of playerRepository and services random stuff like - deleting player, saving player, getting all players, getting the player by id/name yadda yadda.
I want to unit test the playerService without using the real database, but using in-memory database provided with EF.
The problem is, I'm having trouble figuring out how to set it up.
I have a PlayerContext : DbContext class, which is used as a model to code-first (done this part via tutorial on EF). And I have to add a parameter to constructor DbContextOptionsBuilder<PlayerContext>, but I don't know where to begin. I don't know how and where to setup the connection string, where does the "default" database store itself.
I want to do this by using EF without NSubstitute or Moq, I'm doing this to learn how it's done without using other frameworks except for EF.
public class PlayerContext : DbContext
{
public PlayerContext() : base()
{
}
public DbSet<Player> Players { get; set; }
}
public class Player
{
public string Id { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public int DciNumber { get; set; }
}
I'm using visual studio provided unit testing
[TestClass]
public class PlayerServiceTest
{
// Should get all the players from database
[TestMethod]
public void GetAllPlayers()
{
// arrange - act
// TODO: Return all the players from the database
// assert
// TODO: Should return empty list
}
And the PlayerService class looks something like this
public class PlayerService
{
private PlayerRepository _playerRepository = new PlayerRepository();
public List<Player> GetAllPlayers()
{
var players = _playerRepository.GetAllPlayers();
return players;
}
PlayerRepository
public class PlayerRepository
{
public List<Player> GetAllPlayers()
{
using (var context = new PlayerContext())
{
var players = context.Players.ToList();
return players;
}
}
Generally my questions are:
How to make the PlayerContext with another connection string which connects to in-memory database in case of unit test, and also how to provide it with the correct connection string when not running via unit-tests
How to change the location of the database, because it's using a default path in C:\Users.
I'm not looking for integration tests with the DAL's PlayerRepository, I just want to test the business layer and all I need is, when I run the tests that the PlayerService to uses the PlayerRepository which connects to in-memory database and that's it. Otherwise it should connect to the local db stored in the same folder as the main exe for the app
Help needed!
The missing piece is dependency injection / IoC. The principle here is to define your dependencies (Repository) with a contract interface that can be mocked out. Inject that dependency into the classes that depend on it. This way you can substitute out concrete implementations like databases, file handling, etc. with mock up objects that return a known state, throw an expected exception, etc. to test your business logic's handling of those scenarios.
public class PlayerService
{
private readonly IPlayerRepository _playerRepository = null;
public PlayerService(IPlayerRepository playerRepository)
{
_playerRepository = playerRepository ?? throw new ArgumentNullException("playerRepository");
}
public List<Player> GetAllPlayers()
{
var players = _playerRepository.GetAllPlayers();
return players;
}
}
Have a look at IoC containers such as Autofac, Unity, Ninject, etc. for examples of how a container can be st up to automatically identify and inject concrete class instances into your services when it constructs them.
When you go to write a unit test you create a mock of the IPlayerRepository class (see: Moq for example) and pass that to your service under test. I.e.:
[Test]
public void TestService()
{
var mockRepository = new Mock<IPlayerRepository>();
mockRepository.Setup(x => x.GetPlayers()).Returns(buildTestPlayerList());
var serviceUnderTest = new PlayerService(mockRepository.Object);
// continue with test...
}
At a worst case: if you want to forgo the container, this can work as well:
public class PlayerService
{
private IPlayerRepository _playerRepository = null;
public IPlayerRepository PlayerRepository
{
get { return _playerRepository ?? (_playerRepository = new PlayerRepository()); }
set { _playerRepository = value; }
}
// ...
}
... and then with the test...
[Test]
public void TestService()
{
var mockRepository = new Mock<IPlayerRepository>();
mockRepository.Setup(x => x.GetPlayers()).Returns(buildTestPlayerList());
var serviceUnderTest = new PlayerService { PlayerRepository = mockRepository.Object };
// continue with test...
}
This is a pattern I call "lazy property injection" where you can opt to send a dependency in, but by default it will simply create the default dependency. This can be a useful pattern when introducing dependency substitution & unit testing into legacy code that was relying heavily on newing up classes mid-code. It's lazy in the sense that the dependency is only "newed" the first time it is accessed. If you call a method in the service that doesn't need the dependency then there is no initialization of every dependency, only the ones that are used. I highly recommend reading up on IoC containers though since they help automate wiring up dependencies.

Unit test for my ViewModel?

I'm new to unit testing and I'm really stuck atm so I could really use some help.
Some application info
I have a WPF application in MVVM. It gets data from a database (classes generated via .edmx).
All linq queries are handled by methods in the Database class.
In CustomerListViewModel, it makes a list of all Customers to be shown in the CustomerListView.
My problem
I am new to Unit Testing. I've read about it and tried to make it work. But as I understand, it should/can be done without touching the DB. I tried to find as much info as I could, but it wouldn't work with what I have. And now I'm basically stuck.
My question
How do I unit test this piece of code? How can I know if I've successfully queried the database (with or without touching the DB in the unit test)?
(If I understand it for this piece, I can figure the rest of the classes and methods out on my own)
The code
CustomerListViewModel:
public CustomerListViewModel()
{
MyObservableCollection<Customer> listCustomers = new MyObservableCollection<Customer>();
ListCustomers = App.Database.GetCustomerList();
}
private void GetListCustomers()
{
ListCustomers = App.Database.GetCustomerList();
if (App.Database.hasError)
App.Messenger.NotifyColleagues("SetStatus", App.Database.errorMessage);
}
Database:
public MyObservableCollection<Customer> GetCustomerList()
{
hasError = false;
MyObservableCollection<Customer> customerList = new MyObservableCollection<Customer>();
try
{
QRM_Entities dc = new QRM_Entities();
var query =
from customers in dc.Customer
select customers;
foreach (Customer cust in query)
{
customerList.Add(cust);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
errorMessage = "GetCustomerList() error, " + ex.Message;
hasError = true;
}
return customerList;
}
The way that you have the ViewModel currently setup will make it almost impossible to unit test.
The issue is on this line:
ListCustomers = App.Database.GetCustomerList();
I presume that App is a static and Database is the class that you are using as your Data Access Layer. So everytime that you call the constructor of your CustomerListViewModel you will call the actual Static implementation of App which you would have to setup before creating the View Model, meaning that you would always be testing with the actual Database, which is obviously what you are attempting to bypass.
In comes my favorite software principle the Dependency Inversion Principle, the premise of this is that decouple modules so that your high level module depends on an abstraction of a lower level module. And that details should depend on that abstraction. Effectively you should develop to an interface and provide this interface to dependents.
Taking your example I would extract interfaces for your database interaction and provide these to your View Model, but I'll go a step further and provide this to a model which will be provided to your view model.
IDatabase:
public interface IDatabase
{
IEnumerable<ICustomer> GetCustomerList();
}
ICustomerListModel:
public interface ICustomerListModel
{
ObservableCollection<ICustomer> Customers
{
get;
}
}
CustomerListModel
public class CustomerListModel : ICustomerListModel
{
private readonly IDatabase database;
private readonly ObservableCollection<ICustomer> customers;
public CustomerListModel(IDatabase database)
{
this.database = database;
this.customers = new ObservableCollection(database.GetCustomerList());
}
public ObservableCollection<ICustomer> Customers
{
get
{
return this.customers;
}
}
}
CustomerListViewModel
public class CustomerListViewModel
{
private readonly ICustomerListModel customerListModel;
public CusomterListViewModel(ICustomerListModel customerListModel)
{
this.customerListModel = customerListModel;
}
public ObservableCollection<ICustomer> Customers
{
get
{
return this.customerListModel.Customers;
}
}
}
So what you can see here is that I have extracted an interface for the database which I request the information from, this means that I don't care about the implementation of the IDatabase, I just now that it provides me with a collection of ICustomer's when I call GetCustomerList().
So I inject a copy of the IDatabase into the CusomterListModel class which I can then query knowing that I'll get what I want back correctly. I then inject the ICustomerListModel into the ICustomerListViewModel so that the collection can be presented to the View.
So to test the CustomerListModel I would have a test like:
[Fact]
public void Customers_IsCorrectlyInitialisedAtStartup_Test()
{
var databaseMock = new Mock<IDatabse>();
var customer = new Customer();
var customers = new [] { customer };
databaseMock.Setup(mock => mock.GetCustomerList())
.Returns(customers);
var sut = new CustomerListModel(databaseMock.Object);
Assert.Equal(customers, sut.Customers);
}
In this I have mocked a version of the IDatabase, now you can see how I don't care in the version of CustomerListModel what IDatabase I have as long as I can call GetCustomerList(). This has a setup to return a ICustomer when a call to GetCustomerList() is called. Finally I am asserting that the Customers collection was correctly populated with the returns of the IDatabase call.
Unit testing is a fine art, difficult to understand at first but when you get it working at first you'll pick it up quickly. Some things you may wish to look at to help you with generating unit testable code and actually testing:
Solid Principles, principles that every Software Engineer should at least be familiar with, will help generating code that is testable.
Dependency Injection, the wiki-page on Dependency Injection outlining the pros and cons to injecting the dependency into a constructor, when and how to use it in further examples.
Moq, a friendly and easy to use mocking framework for C#, which I used as part of my example above.

Testing CRUD class.

I have some issue. Im writing some unit test in my project but i don't know how to test my CRUD methods.. Maybe they are not testable ;/
This is one of my methods:
public static void IncrementInvalidLoginColumn(string login)
{
User user;
using (DTContext context = new DTContext())
{
try
{
user = context.Users.Where(u => u.Login.CompareTo(login) == 0).FirstOrDefault();
if (user.InvalidLogins < 3)
{
user.InvalidLogins = user.InvalidLogins + 1;
}
context.SaveChanges();
}
catch
{
}
}
}
Maybe someone will have idea what should i do.
It depends on what you mean by "unit" test. If you don't want your test to hit the database then your method is not testable (or at least not without some refactoring).
If hitting the database is acceptable (which would actually be an integration test) then you can definitely test your method.
Here are some steps:
1. Arrange the initial data. You use an instance of the DTContext directly in the test to put the system in a predefined state (basically you write some user records in the database)
You run the method you want to test (which in fact uses its own instance of the DTContext)
You use DTContext again to read the user information directly from the database and assert that the InvalidLogins property has incremented.
You need to make sure you delete any data that you put in manually.
This is the gist of DI:
public class Example {
private IDatabaseGateway myDatabase;
public Example(IDatabaseGateway myDb) {
myDatabase = myDb;
}
public void DoStuff() {
...
myDatabase.GetData();
...
}
}
You give your business class an abstraction of the database via the constructor, that is you inject your dependencies in the class that needs them.
Once you have this in place, in production code you pass in the constructor a concrete instance of IDatabaseGateway that goes to the actual database.
In the case of a unit test you pass it a mock instance of the same interface. The mock is a special object that you can setup/configure to return what you want. Various libraries exist for mocking (an easy one is Moq).
However without modifying your code too much, it is better to stick with integration testing that hits the database. It will give you a simple and valid test.
Especially since there are some pitfalls in mocking the DbContext in EF (ex. some queries may not work when you will use them in production, testing updates in EF with mocks is a bit trickier).
Ok so i read all of your posts and they was very helpful.
I use MOQ framework and this is example how i do it.
This is how Liviu M. told me to do for example:
public class CRUDclass
{
private DTContext _context;
public CRUDclass(DTContext myObj)
{
_context = myObj;
}
}
We have CRUD Class which are doing operations directly on our database. We have constructor with one argument and private field. This our context :)
This is (for example) my method in CRUDclass:
public bool AddUser(User user)
{
try
{
_context.Users.Add(user);
_context.SaveChanges();
return true;
}
catch
{
return false;
}
}
Ovecourse he have our DTContext class witch DBSet becouse i using entity framework. And after that i am able to write some test method:
[TestMethod]
public void Should_Add_User()
{
var mockSet = new Mock<DbSet<User>>();
var mockContext = new Mock<DTContext>();
mockContext.Setup(m => m.Users).Returns(mockSet.Object);
var usrCRUD = new UserCRUD(mockContext.Object);
var usr = new User();
usr.Login = "Login_Name";
usr.Email = "loginName#test.com";
usr.Password = "***";
usr.InvalidLogins = 0;
usr.RememberID = 0;
usrCRUD.AddUser(usr);
mockSet.Verify(m => m.Add(It.Is<User>(arg => arg.Login == "Login_Name")));
mockContext.Verify(m => m.SaveChanges(), Times.Once());
}
At first a have to set my fake object (Mock>).
This test method checks if our user was added to Mock :)
I hope it can help somebody, if anything will be unclear please write a question :)
The idea of unit tests is to test your ifs, switches, etc., not the database operations.
In your case you need an interface that is an abstration of DTContext. In the simplest case it might look as the following.
public interface IObjectContext : IDisposable
{
IEnumerable<User> Users { get; }
}
In more complicated cases you may need to use IQueryable<T> or IObjectSet<T> instead of IEnumerable<T>.
Add a partial class declaration of DTContext and make it implement IObjectContext. Add a constructor to the class that contains the method IncrementInvalidLoginColumn with a parameter of type IObjectContext. Now you can inject any instance of IObjectContext instead of creating it in your class. This instance can be a DTContext or a mock for testing. Your class is ready to be tested without connection to a real database.
NB. In case of instances of IDisposable it's better to inject a Func<IObjectContext> instead of IObjectContext. Then you can create an instance for each operation and dispose it immediately after.
If there are CRUD operations in your code then I will recommend to use MOQ framework for unit testing. Below links are quite helpful:
Quick Start
Code Project
Ideally you would inject your DTContext rather than creating a new one every time that the method is called. That way you could mock that object in your unit test and verify that it is called as expected.
Your constructor would look something like:
private readonly IDTContext _context;
public CrudClass(IDTContext context)
{
_context = context
}
With your method now looking like
public static void IncrementInvalidLoginColumn(string login)
{
User user;
try
{
user = _context.Users.Where(u => u.Login.CompareTo(login) == 0).FirstOrDefault();
if (user.InvalidLogins < 3)
{
user.InvalidLogins = user.InvalidLogins + 1;
}
_context.SaveChanges();
}
catch
{
// Handle errors
}
}
And then in your test, if you were using a framework like Moq, you would basically script how that object would behave and test against that. For instance, setting up the mocked IDTContext to always return the same user for your Users collection and SaveChanges() method will write the number of invalid logins to a variable that you could then test against.

Unit Testing without Database: Linq to SQL

I have a repository implemented using LINQ to SQL. I need to do Unit Testing though I don't have a database. How can I write the UT for FreezeAllAccountsForUser method? Can you please show an example using manually mocking?
Note: There is inheritance mapping used in domain objects
Note: Unit Testing is to be done using Visual Studio Team Test
Comment from #StuperUser. Unit testing involves completely isolating code from the other objects it interacts with. This means that if the code fails, you can be sure that the failure is to do with the code under test. To do this you have to fake these objects.
CODE
public void FreezeAllAccountsForUser(int userId)
{
List<DTOLayer.BankAccountDTOForStatus> bankAccountDTOList = new List<DTOLayer.BankAccountDTOForStatus>();
IEnumerable<DBML_Project.BankAccount> accounts = AccountRepository.GetAllAccountsForUser(userId);
foreach (DBML_Project.BankAccount acc in accounts)
{
string typeResult = Convert.ToString(acc.GetType());
string baseValue = Convert.ToString(typeof(DBML_Project.BankAccount));
if (String.Equals(typeResult, baseValue))
{
throw new Exception("Not correct derived type");
}
acc.Freeze();
DTOLayer.BankAccountDTOForStatus presentAccount = new DTOLayer.BankAccountDTOForStatus();
presentAccount.BankAccountID = acc.BankAccountID;
presentAccount.Status = acc.Status;
bankAccountDTOList.Add(presentAccount);
}
IEnumerable<System.Xml.Linq.XElement> el = bankAccountDTOList.Select(x =>
new System.Xml.Linq.XElement("BankAccountDTOForStatus",
new System.Xml.Linq.XElement("BankAccountID", x.BankAccountID),
new System.Xml.Linq.XElement("Status", x.Status)
));
System.Xml.Linq.XElement root = new System.Xml.Linq.XElement("root", el);
//AccountRepository.UpdateBankAccountUsingParseXML_SP(root);
AccountRepository.Update();
}
Repository Layer
namespace RepositoryLayer
{
public interface ILijosBankRepository
{
System.Data.Linq.DataContext Context { get; set; }
List<DBML_Project.BankAccount> GetAllAccountsForUser(int userID);
void Update();
}
public class LijosSimpleBankRepository : ILijosBankRepository
{
public System.Data.Linq.DataContext Context
{
get;
set;
}
public List<DBML_Project.BankAccount> GetAllAccountsForUser(int userID)
{
IQueryable<DBML_Project.BankAccount> queryResultEntities = Context.GetTable<DBML_Project.BankAccount>().Where(p => p.AccountOwnerID == userID);
return queryResultEntities.ToList();
}
public virtual void Update()
{
//Context.SubmitChanges();
}
}
}
Domain Classes
namespace DBML_Project
{
public partial class BankAccount
{
//Define the domain behaviors
public virtual void Freeze()
{
//Do nothing
}
}
public class FixedBankAccount : BankAccount
{
public override void Freeze()
{
this.Status = "FrozenFA";
}
}
public class SavingsBankAccount : BankAccount
{
public override void Freeze()
{
this.Status = "FrozenSB";
}
}
}
Auto generated Class by LINQ to SQL
[global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.TableAttribute(Name="dbo.BankAccount")]
[InheritanceMapping(Code = "Fixed", Type = typeof(FixedBankAccount), IsDefault = true)]
[InheritanceMapping(Code = "Savings", Type = typeof(SavingsBankAccount))]
public partial class BankAccount : INotifyPropertyChanging, INotifyPropertyChanged
Simply, you can't. The sole purpose of the repository implementation is talking to the database. So the database technology does matter and you should perform integration tests.
Unit testing this code is impossible because LINQ to Objects is a superset of LINQ to SQL. You might have a green unit test and still get the runtime exception when using real db because you used a feature of LINQ in your repository that cannot be translated into SQL.
The Repository responsibility is to persist domain objects and fetch them on request. i.e. it's job is to take an object and deserialize/serialize it to from some form of durable storage.
So tests for the repository have to test against the real storage in this case a DB. i.e. these are integration tests - tests that your class integrates with the external DB.
Once you have this nailed, the rest of the client/app doesn't have to work against the real DB. They can mock the repository and have fast unit tests. You can assume that GetAccount works since the integration tests pass.
More details:
By passing in the Repository object as a ctor or method arg, you open the doors for passing in a fake or a mock. Thus now the service tests can run without a real repository >> there is no DB-access >> fast tests.
public void FreezeAllAccountsForUser(int userId, ILijosBankRepository accountRepository)
{
// your code as before
}
test ()
{ var mockRepository = new Mock<ILijosBankRepository>();
var service = // create object containing FreezeAllAccounts...
service.FreezeAllAccounts(SOME_USER_ID, mockRepository);
mock.Verify(r => r.GetAllAccountsForUser(SOME_USER_ID);
mock.Verify(r => r.Update());
}
You can by using the IDbSet interface in your datacontext and extracting an interface for your datacontext class. Programming towards interfaces is the key to creating unit testable code.
The reason that you would want to create unit tests for these linq queries is to have a unit test for the logical query. Integration tests are subject to all kinds of false negatives. The db not being in the right state, other queries running at the same time, other integration tests, etc. It is very hard to isolate a db well enough for a reliable integration test. That is why integration tests are so often ignored. If i have to pick one, i want the unit test...

Dependency injection in .NET for a class not under test

I am testing the functionality of a StoreManager class which has a dependency on DataBaseConfiguration class.
public class StoreManager {
private DataBaseConfiguration dbConfig;
public void Store(string name) {
dbConfig.Store(name);
}
//other methods here
}
The StoreManager class stores to a database and the only way I can test if this method works fine is to query from the database. I have another class in production which does that..
public class QueryManager {
private DataBaseConfiguration dbConfig;
public string Query(QueryExpression expr) {
//query logic
string name = "somename";
return name;
}}
Eventhough I am concerned with testing only my StoreManager class it looks to me like I need to use the QueryManager class to test the storedvalues.
So I have a basic test case like this one...
[TestFixture]
public class StoreManagerTest {
[TestFixtureSetup]
public void Setup() {
DatabaseConfiguration dbConfig = new DatabaseConfiguration(/*test database details*/);
StoreManager sm = new StoreManager(dbConfig);
QueryManager qm = new QueryManager(dbConfig);
}
[Test]
public void TestStore_ValidStore() {
sm.Store("testname");
string queryResult = qm.Query(new QueryExpression("query_expr"));
Assert.AreSame(queryResult, "testname");
}}
As you can see, apart from the ClassUnderTest (which is StoreManager), the QueryManager class also has a dependency on DatabaseConfig.
I don't have a lot of logic inside the StoreManager class, it just delegates to the DataBaseConfig class to store (well actually there are some more classes involved in storing, its not the DataBaseConfig that actually stores the data.. but just for simplicity purpose, lets say so..)
I would like to know if there is a better way to handle this test without involving QueryManager at all?
Also is there a better way to inject the dependency on DataBaseConfiguration into the StoreManager class (considering that the DataBaseConfiguration class takes details about the connection string, etc., of the database to store the data into.. and I would like to pass in a test database rather than the production database connection string there).
To get the dependencies out of the way in testing the most common approach is to either use a handwritten stub or a mocking framework (i.e Moq or RhinoMocks).
Additionally you would have to enable users of the StoreManager class to pass in the DataBaseConfiguration dependency, otherwise you cannot stub it out w/o changing the code. Constructor injection as you do right now is common practice and a clean way to do this (this becomes more convenient if you use an IOC container when you have lots of dependencies), also see here.
If I understand you correctly, you just want to test that the StoreManager actually stores the value you pass to it, you are interested in the behavior of the StoreManager and its interactions with its dependency DataBaseConfiguration - right now you do that by querying the data store itself for verification.
Given that let's go through a bare-bones example using RhinoMocks - the only thing I changed was define the Store method in your DataBaseConfiguration class as virtual so RhinoMocks can override it.
//Arrange
string storeValue = "testname";
var dbConfigMock = MockRepository.GenerateMock<DataBaseConfiguration>();
dbConfigMock.Expect(x => x.Store(storeValue));
StoreManager sm = new StoreManager(dbConfigMock);
//Act
sm.Store(storeValue);
//Assert
dbConfigMock.AssertWasCalled(x => x.Store(storeValue));
This test verifies that the Store method was called on your DataBaseConfiguration class w/o any other dependencies - it tests the behavior of your StoreManager class. This test does not touch the DB nor does it affect any other classes.
Edit:
I'm not sure I understand the concern about using a mocking framework in production code - the mocking framework is only used in your test projects, no reference to it or any code changes are required to the production code itself.
Using a handwritten stub you can do the same assertions "manually": Define a test stub that stores how many times and with what value Store() was called (again this requires the Store method to be declared virtual so it can be overridden):
public class DataBaseConfigurationTest : DataBaseConfiguration
{
public int TimesCalled { get; set; }
public string LastNameStored { get; set; }
public DataBaseConfigurationTest()
{
TimesCalled = 0;
}
public override void Store(string name)
{
TimesCalled++;
LastNameStored = name;
}
}
Now use this test stub in your test instead of the "real" DataBaseConfiguration:
string storeValue = "testname";
DataBaseConfigurationTest dbConfigStub = new DataBaseConfigurationTest();
StoreManager sm = new StoreManager(dbConfigStub);
sm.Store(storeValue);
Assert.AreEqual(1, dbConfigStub.TimesCalled);
Assert.AreEqual(storeValue, dbConfigStub.LastNameStored);

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