How to unit test a refresh functionality with stub objects.

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How to unit test a refresh functionality with stub objects.

I'm working on a unit test which executes some business logic that will eventually result in a refresh (so execute the same query again) of the data.

Using Dependency Injection (with Castle-Windsor) the unit tests use stub objects, so a static list of entities is returned from the method that gets the data.

So how can I test whether this method is called again?

I abused a date-time field in one of the entities to test the second get (DateTime after refresh != before refresh), but I don't think this is really a good solution.

Can someone offer me an elegant solution for this?

+1 A:

The question "So how can I test whether this method is called again?" sounds like you really want mocks rather than stubs - you're testing protocol rather than just having a static set of data to be returned. Personally I like the Rhino.Mocks library.

Jon Skeet 2009-03-03 09:50:55

Thank you for your answer. But can you please elaborate on how a mock object can help me with this problem? (I don't know anything about Rhino.Mocks)

Gerrie Schenck 2009-03-03 09:54:34

Mocking tests your interaction with the dependency, rather than just setting values to be returned. See http://ayende.com/wiki/Rhino+Mocks+Introduction.ashx for an introduction to Rhino.Mocks - for general "what is mocking" questions I'd be doing a search for a good article to start with.

Jon Skeet 2009-03-03 10:06:45

(i.e. I don't know any good articles offhand, so I'd be doing a search which you can do just as easily. Sorry not to have any appropriate resources off the top of my head.)

Jon Skeet 2009-03-03 10:07:40

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How to unit test a refresh functionality with stub objects.

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