Question

I am writing an app that I have been deploying to appharbor. I am having trouble getting my project to build now because I have expanded my tests. I believe the issue is that I am using a db initializer to populate the database with test seed data. These tests pass on my local box but once I deploy the tests fail on appharbor. I suspect I need to mock data but I am not sure how to do this. As an example, here is a controller test that I have for one of my action methods.

Controller

    // GET: /Lead/Url
    // TODO: Add optional url parameters
    public ActionResult Url(string pfirstname, string plastname, string phone, int leadsource)
    {

        var lead = new Lead();
        //store 
        lead.parent_FirstName = pfirstname;
        lead.parent_LastName = plastname;
        lead.parent_Phone = phone;
        lead.LeadSourceID = leadsource;
        lead.AgentID = 1;

        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            leadRepository.InsertLead(lead);
            leadRepository.Save();
            ViewBag.Message = "Success";
        }

        return View(lead);
    }

    //
    // POST: /Lead/URL       
    [HttpPost, ActionName("Url")]
    public ActionResult Url(Lead lead)
    {
        return View();
    }

Unit Test

[TestMethod]
    public void LeadUrl()
    {
        //ARRANGE
        ILeadRepository leadrepository = new LeadRepository(new LeadManagerContext());
        Database.SetInitializer<LeadManagerContext>(new LeadManagerInitializer());
        LeadController controller = new LeadController(leadrepository);

        //ACT
        ViewResult result = controller.Url("Brad", "woods","465-456-4965",1) as ViewResult;
        var lead = (Lead)result.ViewData.Model;

        //ASSERT
       Assert.AreEqual("Success" ,result.ViewBag.Message);
        /*check for valid data */
       Assert.AreEqual("Brad", lead.parent_FirstName);

    }

Could someone please explain what I need to do next in order to improve code like this and get it to run again on app harbor successfully?

Answer 1

Actually you haven’t verified interactions between controller and it’s dependencies (repository). And this is the most important part – controller should pass your Lead object to repository. And then call Save (consider also to Unit Of Work pattern).

Also you should test controller in isolation, only this way you could be sure, that failing controller’s test is an issue of controller, not of LeadRepository or LeadManagerInitializer.

// Arrange
Lead expected = CreateBrad();    
var repository = new Mock<ILeadRepository>();
LeadController controller = new LeadController(repository.Object);    
// Act
ViewResult result = (ViewResult)controller.Url("Brad", "woods", "465-456", 1);
// Assert      
Lead actual = (Lead)result.ViewData.Model;
// All fields should be equal, not only name
Assert.That(actual, Is.EqualTo(expected));
Assert.AreEqual("Success", result.ViewBag.Message);
// You need to be sure, that expected lead object passed to repository
repository.Verify(r => r.InsertLead(expected));
repository.Verify(r => r.Save());

BTW I’d moved expected Lead creation to separate method:

private Lead CreateBrad()
{
    Lead lead = new Lead();
    lead.parent_FirstName = "Brad";
    lead.parent_LastName = "woods";
    lead.parent_Phone = "465-456";
    lead.LeadSourceID = 1;
    lead.AgentID = 1;
    return lead;
}

Also you should override Equals method for Lead instances comparison:

public class Lead
{
   // your current code here

   public override bool Equals(object obj)
   {
       Lead other = obj as Lead;
       if (other == null)
           return false;

       return other.parent_FirstName == parent_FirstName &&
              other.parent_LastName == parent_LastName &&
              // compare other properties here
              other.AgentID == AgentID;
   }

   // also override GetHashCode method
}

BTW Why you don’t pass Lead object to your action method (via POST message)?