Unit testing ASP.NET MVC 2 routes with areas bails out on AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas()

Question

I'm unit testing my routes in ASP.NET MVC 2. I'm using MSTest and I'm using areas as well.

[TestClass]
public class RouteRegistrarTests
{
    [ClassInitialize]
    public static void ClassInitialize(TestContext testContext)
    {
        RouteTable.Routes.Clear();

        RouteTable.Routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
        RouteTable.Routes.IgnoreRoute("{*favicon}", new { favicon = @"(.*/)?favicon.ico(/.*)?" });

        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

        routes.MapRoute(
            "default",
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        );
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void RouteMaps_VerifyMappings_Match()
    {
        "~/".Route().ShouldMapTo<HomeController>(n => n.Index());
    }
}

When it executes AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas() however, it throws this exception:

System.InvalidOperationException: System.InvalidOperationException: This method cannot be called during the application's pre-start initialization stage.

So, I reckon I can't call it from my class initializer. But when can I call it? I obviously don't have an Application_Start in my test.

Answer 1

Well there is no place in test project you can put AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas(); to make it work, becouse it uses System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager class to compile code for website, and wich fails if it's called outside the ASP.NET pipeline. I think it's sort of bug, becouse it's realy makes tests very hard to run.

But I've invented a 2 step workaround :)

First you should modify App.Config file of your test project

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <appSettings>

    </appSettings>

    <connectionStrings>

    </connectionStrings>
    <system.web>
        <compilation debug="true">
            <assemblies>
                <add assembly="!!!NAME_OF_YOUR_MVC_WEB_ASSEMBLY!!!"/>       
            </assemblies>
        </compilation>
    </system.web>
    </configuration>

Actualy you should refference all assemblies that contains AreaRegistration descenders. Second add this ugly code before AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

typeof(BuildManager).GetProperty("PreStartInitStage", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static).SetValue(null, 2, null);

typeof(BuildManager).GetField("_topLevelFilesCompiledStarted", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).SetValue(   typeof(BuildManager).GetField("_theBuildManager", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static).GetValue(null), true);

This works only for .Net 4.0

Answer 2

I think you are looking for the TestHelper class in the MVC Contrib library. Take a look at the tests in MVC Contrib (it is hidden away in there). You will find that everything is nicely mocked out.H

MVCContrib.UnitTests\TestHelper\RoutesTest.cs - must update the wiki! Good luck

using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Routing;
using NUnit.Framework;

namespace MVCContrib.Application.UnitTests.TestHelper
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for UserRoutesTest
    /// </summary>
    [TestFixture]
    public class UserRoutesTest
    {
        [TestFixtureSetUp]
        public void Setup()
        {
            var routes = RouteTable.Routes;
            routes.Clear();
            routes.MapRoute(
                "Default",                                              // Route name
                "{controller}",                                         // URL with parameters
                new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }  // Parameter defaults
                );

        }

        [Test]
        public void homeIndex()
        {
            "~/user"
                .ShouldMapTo<HomeController>(action => action.Index());
        }


        [Test]
        public void HomeShow()
        {
                         "~/home"
                           .GivenIncomingAs(HttpVerbs.Put)
                           .ShouldMapTo<HomeController>(action => action.Index());
        }

    }
}

Answer 3

I solved this by creating an instance of my AreaRegistration class and calling the RegisterArea method.

For example, given an Area named "Catalog" with this route:

public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
{
  context.MapRoute(
      "Catalog_default",
      "Catalog/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
      new {controller = "List", action = "Index", id = "" }
  );
}

This is my test method:

[TestMethod]
public void TestCatalogAreaRoute()
{
  var routes = new RouteCollection();

  // Get my AreaRegistration class
  var areaRegistration = new CatalogAreaRegistration();
  Assert.AreEqual("Catalog", areaRegistration.AreaName);

  // Get an AreaRegistrationContext for my class. Give it an empty RouteCollection
  var areaRegistrationContext = new AreaRegistrationContext(areaRegistration.AreaName, routes);
  areaRegistration.RegisterArea(areaRegistrationContext);

  // Mock up an HttpContext object with my test path (using Moq)
  var context = new Mock<HttpContextBase>();
  context.Setup(c => c.Request.AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath).Returns("~/Catalog");

  // Get the RouteData based on the HttpContext
  var routeData = routes.GetRouteData(context.Object);

  Assert.IsNotNull(routeData, "Should have found the route");
  Assert.AreEqual("Catalog", routeData.DataTokens["area"]);
  Assert.AreEqual("List", routeData.Values["controller"]);
  Assert.AreEqual("Index", routeData.Values["action"]);
  Assert.AreEqual("", routeData.Values["id"]);
}

Answer 4

I know I'm chiming in late here, but I just worked through this problem myself. Similar solution as Jason (register one area at a time), but like you I'm using MvcContrib.TestHelper instead of doing my own mocking.

[TestInitialize]
public void Setup() {
    RouteTable.Routes.Clear();
    var areaReg = new AdminAreaRegistration();
    areaReg.RegisterArea(new AreaRegistrationContext(areaReg.AreaName, RouteTable.Routes));
}

[TestMethod]
public void admin_should_map_to_home() {
    "~/Admin".ShouldMapTo<HomeController>(c => c.Index());
}

Note that MvcContrib has a hard dependency on Rhino Mocks. While I prefer using Moq, I'm fine with including the Rhino dll just to gain this nice functionality.

Answer 5

Here a nice version with combined approaches.

Code used from:

• Previous answer
• Phils approach
• Anonymous types as dictionaries

---

[TestClass]
public class RoutesTest : RoutesTestClassBase<SomeAreaRegistration>
{
    [TestMethod]
    public void IdWithoutName()
    {
        // Area-Name is retrieved from the Registration 
        // and prepended as "~/AreaName/"

        TestRoute("Contacts/Show/0627ED05-BF19-4090-91FC-AD3865B40983", new { 
            controller = "Contacts", 
            action = "Show",
            id = "0627ED05-BF19-4090-91FC-AD3865B40983"
        });
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void IdAndName()
    {
        TestRoute("Contacts/Show/0627ED05-BF19-4090-91FC-AD3865B40983-Some-name", new
        {
            controller = "Contacts",
            action = "Show",
            id = "0627ED05-BF19-4090-91FC-AD3865B40983",
            name= "Some-name"
        });
    }
}

---

The base-fixture:

public class RoutesTestClassBase<TAreaRegistration>
{
    protected void TestRoute(string url, object expectations)
    {
        var routes = new RouteCollection();
        var areaRegistration = (AreaRegistration)Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(TAreaRegistration));

        // Get an AreaRegistrationContext for my class. Give it an empty RouteCollection
        var areaRegistrationContext = new AreaRegistrationContext(areaRegistration.AreaName, routes);
        areaRegistration.RegisterArea(areaRegistrationContext);

        url = "~/" + areaRegistration.AreaName + "/" + url;

        // Mock up an HttpContext object with my test path (using Moq)
        var context = new Mock<HttpContextBase>();
        context.Setup(c => c.Request.AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath).Returns(url);

        // Get the RouteData based on the HttpContext
        var routeData = routes.GetRouteData(context.Object);

        Assert.IsNotNull(routeData, "Should have found the route");
        Assert.AreEqual(areaRegistration.AreaName, routeData.DataTokens["area"]);

        foreach (PropertyValue property in GetProperties(expectations))
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(string.Equals(property.Value.ToString(),
                routeData.Values[property.Name].ToString(),
                StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
                , string.Format("Expected '{0}', not '{1}' for '{2}'.",
                property.Value, routeData.Values[property.Name], property.Name));
        }
    }

    private static IEnumerable<PropertyValue> GetProperties(object o)
    {
        if (o != null)
        {
            PropertyDescriptorCollection props = TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(o);
            foreach (PropertyDescriptor prop in props)
            {
                object val = prop.GetValue(o);
                if (val != null)
                {
                    yield return new PropertyValue { Name = prop.Name, Value = val };
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private sealed class PropertyValue
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public object Value { get; set; }
    }
}