Question

I’m looking into adding some unit tests for some classes in my data access layer and I’m looking at an update routine that has no return value. It simply updates a row based on the id you provide at whichever column name you provide.

Inside of this method, we collect the parameters and pass them to a helper routine which calls the stored procedure to update the table.

Is there a recommended approach for how to do unit testing in such a scenario? I’m having a hard time thinking of a test that wouldn’t depend on other methods.

Answer 1

Test the method that reads the data from the database, first.

Then you can call the update function, and use the function that was tested above, to verify that the value that was updated is correct.

I tend to use other methods in my unit tests as long as I have tests that also test those that were called.

If your helper functions are in the database (stored procedures or functions) then just test those with a DatabaseUnitTest first, then test the visual basic code.