CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#arraysunit-testingcollections
Roger
Roger

Reputation: 457

How to unit test the saving of a collection

I am trying to write a unit test for a method that saves multiple records into a database. The method is passed a collection argument. The method loops through the collection. The userid associated with the object is set and the record is updated in the the database. This is done for every object in the collection. Any idea on how to create a unit test besides having it write to the database.

Thanks,

Upvotes: 1

Views: 197

Answers (2)

Alexey Zimarev
Alexey Zimarev

Reputation: 19600

As mentioned in comments, you have an option to abstract the database operations by some interface. If you use ORM, you can implement generic repositories, if you use plain ADO.NET, you can implement something like transaction script.

Another option would be to use SQLite in-memory database. It is not clear what db interface you are using, but SQLite is supported by the majority of database access methods in .NET, including Entity Framework. This would not exactly be a unit test but it does the job.

Upvotes: 2

Sam Holder
Sam Holder

Reputation: 32936

As has been suggested in the comments, you have 2 choices

  • Create an abstraction for the actual writing to the database and verify the interactions with that abstraction are as you would expect for your method. This will give you fast unit tests but you will still have to write integration tests for the implementation of your abstraction which actually puts data in the database. To verify the interactions you can either use a mocking library or create an implementation of the interface just for testing with.
  • Create an integration test that writes to the database and verify that the data is inserted as you would expect. these tests will be slower, but will give you confidence that the data will actually be placed in the database.

My preference is for the second option, as this tests that the data will actually be persisted correctly, something you are going to have to do eventually, but not everyone likes to do this.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions