Unit Testing ASP.net Web Site Project code stored in App_Code

Question

I have an ASP.net Web Site Project (.net 3.5). Currently all of the non-code behind code files (including Linq2Sql stuff, data contexts, business logic, extension methods, etc) are located in the App_Code folder.

I am interested in introducing Unit Testing (using nunit) in at least some sections of the project moving forward. Any Unit Testing that I would be doing would need to have full access to all of the code that is currently located in the App_Code folder. I have done some initial reading so far, and the consensus seems to be:

• This will not be possible given my current setup
• Unit testing requires referencing classes that are part of a compiled dll, and a Web Site Project by definition only compiles at run time.
• In order to proceed, I will need to either convert my entire project to a Web Application, or move all of the code that I would like to test (ie: the entire contents of App_Code) to a class library project and reference the class library project in the web site project. Either of these will provide access to the classes that I need in compiled dll format, which will allow me to Unit Test them.

Is this correct? Or is there another way that I can Unit Test without restructuring/refactoring my entire project?

Answer 1

Your conclusions seem correct. I would vote for moving functionality into one or several class library projects, since that may open the door for reusing the same functionality in other projects as well.

Answer 2

And as the OP stated it's also possible to move to a Web App project, which i would say is cleaner as well, your pages can stay in the wep app project, you will have them in 1 DLL (testable). All your business logic etc. goes in a separate class library / libraries.

Answer 3

It looks like this is possible whilst still using App_code, but I would either move this logic out to its own class library project or change the project type to Web Application, as Fredrik and Colin suggest.

I always create my own ASP.NET projects as Web Application projects not Websites.

Answer 4

Hi there, i also have web site project and one DataContext class in it, in which i have all logic (db working with dbml file and other methods dont working with db), if i understood correctly the only way to test this class for me without changin project type to web appl project is to move logic to a separete dll, but i dont get how the methods working with database using linq can be moved to separete dll and tested, i mean before calling such methods there must be a setup method run first which establishesh a connection to server? the same way the application establishes it during runtime? and what if some methods are dependent on configuration in my .config file? how do i test these in that case? could some1 give me an explanation plz, im quite new in web dev, Great thx.

Answer 5

We have this issue at my company (My boss doesn't like DLLs, some rubbish about versioning...)

We have two ways round it that we use frequently:

1) Get the CI tool to do the unit testing: We use TeamCity which has a pretty tight NUnit integration, and our solution builds quick enough (and has few enough tests) for this to be a valid option.

2) Manually precompile and unit test the resulting binaries: It's perfectly possible to run the ASP.net compiler / MSBuild from the command line (as if you were doing a 'Publish' build) and just unit test the resulting binaries.

However, if you have the option of segregating the code into binaries (class libraries) or just using a web application, I'd suggest that as a better alternative.