In Place for Test-projects in projects structure the discussion is about the folder structure of projects and tests.
Now how about the structuring in the VS2010 solution:
In one project I have my structure like this
- MainSolution
- ClassLibrary1 (project)
- ClassLibrary1.Tests (project)
- ClassLibrary2 (project)
- ClassLibrary2.Tests (project)
- WindowsProgram (project)
- WindowsProgram.Test (project)
Where WindowsProgram references ClassLibrary1 and ClassLibrary1 references ClassLibrary2
Now I have both program, class libraries and test in one solution.
Would it be better to have two solutions? Like the following:
Only the program and its DLL’s (for simplicity in VS2010)
- MainSolution
- ClassLibrary1 (project)
- ClassLibrary2 (project)
- WindowsProgram (project)
The solution with the tests.
- TestSolution
- ClassLibrary1 (same project as above)
- ClassLibrary1.Tests (project)
- ClassLibrary2 (same project as above)
- ClassLibrary2.Tests (project)
- WindowsProgram (same project as above)
- WindowsProgram.Test (project)
I know that this means that whenever a change is made in the main solution, test solution should be build too and all the test should be ran to see if something was broken.
Should I stay with the former solution structure or transfer to the latter?
I’m working on a codebase with a structure like your second on at the moment. Sigh.
DON’T DO IT!
People end up loading the first solution, making changes and then closing the solution. The tests are never run and everything is broken. A build server could manage this for you but it’s still not as good as having the developers run the tests after every change.