generate random values for unit testing Hast table data type

Question

My project generates few values(equal partitioning method) for each data types by getting the Minimum and Maximum values. i am doing this generating values for functional testing ,i am actually passing this values to nunit partner ,max amd min are applicable to int ,float ,double etc ..these values are test data .

Initially i generated for basic data types like int, float, double, string etc.

Now i need to support data types like DataSet, HashTable and other Collections.

public DataSet MySampleMethod(int param1, string param2, Hashtable ht) for testing this fuctions i can pass values for int and string but how will i pass test data for ht or how is test data generated for hash table

Answer 1

You should not use random data at all for unit testing. A test may pass or fail randomly depending on the data chosen, and when you try to find out why it failed you may have a very hard time debugging the code because you can't repeat the failure in a predictable way.

Answer 2

First - I always seed my random values for unit tests, so that hey are repeatable - however, something like (using Dictionary<,> instead of HashTable, but equivalent):

        Random rand = new Random(123456); // note seed
        Dictionary<int, double> lookup = new Dictionary<int, double>();
        for (int i = 0; i < 5000; i++)
        {
            lookup[rand.Next(100000)] = rand.NextDouble();
        }