CSUnit in a Nutshell

13-04-2001

# CSUnit For Dummies

This document is a brief introduction to CSunit, a Unit Testing framework for C# programs, written in C#.

### About CSUnit

CSUnit is part of the DotGNU Portable.NET system that can be used to perform Unit Testing of C# programs. It has been designed with a minimum dependency on our C# library · Pnetlib , so that this can be used to test our library functionality.

### What is Unit Testing?

A Unit Test is a simple piece of test code that tests one teeny-weeny bit of your program. A Unit Test does not test application level functionality. A Unit Testing tool is a framework that makes it Easy to write, maintain, execute, , collect & present results from, a number of unit tests.

### What can I do with CSUnit

With CSUnit, we can do all of the above. CSUnit comes with a a command line interface as of now. We will be building support into a number of IDE's like SharpDevelop or the DotGNU Development Environment later.

### Using CSUnit

Using the CSUnit testing framework will involve the following:

- Writing tests
- Executing the tests and collecting/viewing results.[TODO]

### Writing tests

#### You should first write a class that extends CSUnit.TestCase like this:

>> TestFoo.cs

`

    using CSUnit;
    using System;

    public class TestFoo : TestCase
    {

    	public TestFoo(String name) : base(name)
    	{
    	}

    	protected override void Setup()
    	{
    		// do the initial setup -- most likely none :)
    	}

    	protected override void Cleanup()
    	{
    		// cleanup the mess this test makes
    	}

    	// we consider any function that starts with a Test or test as a
    	// CSUnit test -- thank God for Reflection

    	public void TestFeature()
    	{

    		Assert("I'm testing Foo.Feature()",Foo.Feature() == expected_value);

    		// AssertEquals is especially good for testing String/Object retvals

    		AssertEquals("Foo.Feature() should be \"1\" here","1",Foo.Feature());

    		// OR be a bit more specific

    		AssertEquals("Foo.Feature()==\"1\"","1",Foo.Feature());

    		try
    		{
    			Foo a=null;
    			Foo.Feature("foo");
    			Fail("NullReferenceException not caught !");
    			// it's obvious that I went a little overboard with the
    			// error messages -- be a little less alarming :)
    		}
    		catch(NullReferenceException err)
    		{
    			//woooohooo caught it !.
    		}
    	}
    }

`

Each unit test you write will be a method of this class, and should start with "Test" or "test"

Assert() is a function that is available via the TestCase class. The assert succeeds if the condition passed to it is true, and it fails otherwise. The AssertEquals() is a function that avoids the use of the == operator overloading for comparing Objects. When an assert fails, the CSUnit makes a note that the test has failed, and if a test routine returns without any error/failure, CSUnit makes a note that the test has succeeded.

Add as many unit tests as you like . Unlike the more famous JUnit, CSUnit does not support a GUI as of now -- but the really picky guys may contact me for a kewl hack on this issue.

What we have seen is the simplest way to write CSUnit tests. It is more than likely that testing non-trivial code will need non-trivial testing. I'll move into more detail later in a full fledged documentation effort for CSUnit. As well as the methods to run CSUnit tests.

CSUnit is a very simple tool that can be used to organize and easily execute a number of test cases, which can be built incrementally.This document did not cover all features of CSUnit but is only meant to be a first step into Unit testing using CSUnit.

Orginally for JUnit by Sriram Karra . Hacked for CSUnit by Gopal.V

This Document is Licensed under the GNU FDL.
(C) Southern Storm Inc 2002