Question

Here is my class:

public class AuditInfo
{
    public String ActionDescription { get; set; }
    public String ActionWho { get; set; }
    public BasicProjectProfile Project { get; set; }


    public AuditInfo ()
    { }

    public void SaveInfo ()
    {
        using (CIHEntities _dbContext = new CIHEntities())
        {
            AuditInfoEntity aie = new AuditInfoEntity();
            aie.ActionDescription = this.ActionDescription;
            aie.ActionWhen = DateTime.Now;
            if (this.ActionWho != null)
            {
                aie.ActionWho = this.ActionWho;
            }
            else
            {
                aie.ActionWho = "Not Specified";
            }
            aie.ProjectAssoc = _dbContext.ProjectEntity
                .Where(r => r.Id == this.Project.Id)
                .First();
            _dbContext.SaveChanges();
        }
    }
}

CIHEntities is a Entity Framework Database.

I would like to unit test the SaveInfo method but it shouldn’t actually save to the Database. How Can this be done?

Thanks

Eric

Answer 1

use the Repository pattern and move the responsibility for saving the enity to the Repository:

public class AuditInfo
{
    public String ActionDescription { get; set; }
    public String ActionWho { get; set; }
    public BasicProjectProfile Project { get; set; }
}

write an interface for your repository:

public interface IRepository
{
    void Save();
}

then your implemention:

public RealRepository : IRepository
{
    public void SaveInfo ()
    {
        using (CIHEntities _dbContext = new CIHEntities())
        {
            AuditInfoEntity aie = new AuditInfoEntity();
            aie.ActionDescription = this.ActionDescription;
            aie.ActionWhen = DateTime.Now;
            if (this.ActionWho != null)
            {
                aie.ActionWho = this.ActionWho;
            }
            else
            {
                aie.ActionWho = "Not Specified";
            }
            aie.ProjectAssoc = _dbContext.ProjectEntity
                .Where(r => r.Id == this.Project.Id)
                .First();
            _dbContext.SaveChanges();
        }
    }
}

then make your client code that takes a repository as a parameter will be something like this

public class MyClient{

    IRepository _repository;

    public MyClient(){
        _repository = new RealRepository();
    }

    public MyClient(IRepository repository)
    {
        _repository = repository;
    }

    public void Main(){
         AuditInfo entity = new AuditInfo();
         //do whatever you want
         _repository.Save();
    }
}

Your real application can use the default constructor which will use the RealRepository while you unit tests can can pass a Fake Repository implementation that doesn’t talk to the database (or even better use a Mocking framework like Moq).

This is the basic concept, you can improve it to have a Generic Repository, use UoW pattern … You can read more about it in this msdn article: Testability and EF