Testing and mocking private/protected methods. Many posts but still cannot make one example work

Question

Hi, I have seen many posts and questions about "Mocking a private method" but still cannot make it work and not found a real answer. Lets forget the code smell and you should not do it etc....

From what I understand I have done the following:

1) Created a class Library "MyMoqSamples"

2) Added a ref to Moq and NUnit

3) Edited the AssemblyInfo file and added [assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("DynamicProxyGenAssembly2")] [assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("MyMoqSamples")]

4) Now need to test a private method.Since it's a private method it's not part of an interface.

5) added the following code

        [TestFixture]
            public class Can_test_my_private_method
            {
                [Test]
                public void Should_be_able_to_test_my_private_method()
                {
                    //TODO how do I test my DoSomthing method
                }
            }

            public class CustomerInfo
            {
                public string Name { get; set; }
                public string Surname { get; set; }
            }

            public interface ICustomerService
            {
                List<CustomerInfo> GetCustomers();
            }

            public class CustomerService: ICustomerService
            {
                public List<CustomerInfo> GetCustomers()
                {
                    return new List<CustomerInfo> {new CustomerInfo {Surname = "Bloggs", Name = "Jo"}};
                }

                protected virtual void DoSomething()
                {

                }
            }

Could you provide me an example on how you would test my private method? Thanks a lot

Answer 1

The steps you're describing set Moq up to test internal classes and members so have nothing really to do with testing a protected or private method

Testing private methods is a bit of a smell, you should really test just the public API. If you feel that the method is really important and needs to be tested in isolation perhaps it deserves to be in its own class where it can then be tested on its own?

If your heart is set on testing the protected method above you can roll your own Mock in your test assembly:

public class CustomerServiceMock : CustomerService {
    public void DoSomethingTester() {
         // Set up state or whatever you need
         DoSomething();
    }

}

[TestMethod]
public void DoSomething_WhenCalled_DoesSomething() {
    CustomerServiceMock serviceMock = new CustomerServiceMock(...);
    serviceMock.DoSomethingTester();
 }

If it was private you could probably do something dodgy with reflection but going that route is the way to testing hell.

---

Update

While you've given sample code in your question I don't really see how you want to "test" the protected method so I'll come up with something contrived...

Lets say your customer service looks like this:-

 public CustomerService : ICustomerService {

      private readonly ICustomerRepository _repository;

      public CustomerService(ICustomerRepository repository) {
           _repository = repository;
      } 

      public void MakeCustomerPreferred(Customer preferred) {
           MakePreferred(customer);
           _repository.Save(customer);
      }

      protected virtual void MakePreferred(Customer customer) {
          // Or more than likely some grungy logic
          customer.IsPreferred = true;
      }
 }

If you wanted to test the protected method you can just do something like:-

[TestClass]
public class CustomerServiceTests {

     CustomerServiceTester customerService;
     Mock<ICustomerRepository> customerRepositoryMock;

     [TestInitialize]
     public void Setup() {
          customerRepoMock = new Mock<ICustomerRepository>();
          customerService = new CustomerServiceTester(customerRepoMock.Object);
     }


     public class CustomerServiceTester : CustomerService {    
          public void MakePreferredTest(Customer customer) {
              MakePreferred(customer);
          }

          // You could also add in test specific instrumentation
          // by overriding MakePreferred here like so...

          protected override void MakePreferred(Customer customer) {
              CustomerArgument = customer;
              WasCalled = true;
              base.MakePreferred(customer);
          }

          public Customer CustomerArgument { get; set; }
          public bool WasCalled { get; set; }
     }

     [TestMethod]
     public void MakePreferred_WithValidCustomer_MakesCustomerPreferred() {
         Customer customer = new Customer();
         customerService.MakePreferredTest(customer);
         Assert.AreEqual(true, customer.IsPreferred);
     }

     // Rest of your tests
}

The name of this "pattern" is Test specific subclass (based on xUnit test patterns terminology) for more info you might want to see here:-

http://xunitpatterns.com/Test-Specific%20Subclass.html

Based on your comments and previous question it seems like you've been tasked with implementing unit tests on some legacy code (or made the decision yourself). In which case the bible of all things legacy code is the book by Michael Feathers. It covers techniques like this as well as refactorings and techniques to deal with breaking down "untestable" classes and methods into something more manageable and I highly recommend it.

Answer 2

There are appear to be two parts to your question.

1. How do I mock a protected method:

   http://www.clariusconsulting.net/blogs/kzu/archive/2008/07/05/MockingprotectedmemberswithMoq.aspx

2. how do I trigger the invocation of this protected/private behavior in my test

   The answer here is that you trigger it via something public. If you want to force it to happen directly (i.e., actually invoke something protected directly without an intermediate helper, you'll need to use reflection. This is by design - the languages are providing the protection mechanisms as a way of enforcing encapsulation.

I suggest you think about what you're trying to demonstrate/prove in your test though. If you find yourself writing a test that's complicated, you're Doing It Wrong. Perhaps what you want to do can be broken down into independent tests? Perhaps you are writing an integration test, not a unit test? But there are lots of articles out there on bad tests, and more an more will make sense to you as you learn to write good tests. Two of my favourites are http://www.codethinked.com/post/2009/06/30/What-is-Unit-Testing.aspx and http://www.codethinked.com/post/2009/11/05/Ite28099s-Okay-To-Write-Unit-Tests.aspx