Unit Testing File I/O

user_140810 0
Viewed 56517

Reading through the existing unit testing related threads here on Stack Overflow, I couldn't find one with a clear answer about how to unit test file I/O operations. I have only recently started looking into unit testing, having been previously aware of the advantages but having difficulty getting used to writing tests first. I have set up my project to use NUnit and Rhino Mocks and although I understand the concept behind them, I'm having a little trouble understanding how to use Mock Objects.

Specifically I have two questions that I would like answered. First, what is the proper way to unit test file I/O operations? Second, in my attempts to learn about unit testing, I have come across dependency injection. After getting Ninject set up and working, I was wondering whether I should use DI within my unit tests, or just instantiate objects directly.

nunit file-io dependency-injection unit-testing c#
6 Answers

I use the System.IO.Abstractions NuGet package.

This web site has a nice example showing you how to use injection for testing. http://dontcodetired.com/blog/post/Unit-Testing-C-File-Access-Code-with-SystemIOAbstractions

Here is a copy of the code copied from the web site.

using System.IO;
using System.IO.Abstractions;

namespace ConsoleApp1
{
    public class FileProcessorTestable
    {
        private readonly IFileSystem _fileSystem;

        public FileProcessorTestable() : this (new FileSystem()) {}

        public FileProcessorTestable(IFileSystem fileSystem)
        {
            _fileSystem = fileSystem;
        }

        public void ConvertFirstLineToUpper(string inputFilePath)
        {
            string outputFilePath = Path.ChangeExtension(inputFilePath, ".out.txt");

            using (StreamReader inputReader = _fileSystem.File.OpenText(inputFilePath))
            using (StreamWriter outputWriter = _fileSystem.File.CreateText(outputFilePath))
            {
                bool isFirstLine = true;

                while (!inputReader.EndOfStream)
                {
                    string line = inputReader.ReadLine();

                    if (isFirstLine)
                    {
                        line = line.ToUpperInvariant();
                        isFirstLine = false;
                    }

                    outputWriter.WriteLine(line);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}





using System.IO.Abstractions.TestingHelpers;
using Xunit;

namespace XUnitTestProject1
{
    public class FileProcessorTestableShould
    {
        [Fact]
        public void ConvertFirstLine()
        {
            var mockFileSystem = new MockFileSystem();

            var mockInputFile = new MockFileData("line1\nline2\nline3");

            mockFileSystem.AddFile(@"C:\temp\in.txt", mockInputFile);

            var sut = new FileProcessorTestable(mockFileSystem);
            sut.ConvertFirstLineToUpper(@"C:\temp\in.txt");

            MockFileData mockOutputFile = mockFileSystem.GetFile(@"C:\temp\in.out.txt");

            string[] outputLines = mockOutputFile.TextContents.SplitLines();

            Assert.Equal("LINE1", outputLines[0]);
            Assert.Equal("line2", outputLines[1]);
            Assert.Equal("line3", outputLines[2]);
        }
    }
}
user_21388110

Since 2012, you can do that using Microsoft Fakes without the need to change your codebase for example because it was frozen already.

First generate a fake assembly for System.dll - or any other package and then mock expected returns as in:

using Microsoft.QualityTools.Testing.Fakes;
...
using (ShimsContext.Create())
{
     System.IO.Fakes.ShimFile.ExistsString = (p) => true;
     System.IO.Fakes.ShimFile.ReadAllTextString = (p) => "your file content";

      //Your methods to test
}
user_11721990
Related