Gain insights into unit testing principles, and delve into configuring and using NUnit. Discover how to write effective tests, maximize coverage, and elevate your testing projects.

Dockerfile.tar.gz

Iteration1

Iteration2

AssertTrueExample

AssertTrueExercise

AssertNullExample

AssertNullExercise

GeneralJob

WebAppWithoutTest

MSTest

XUnit

ConsoleWithoutTest

GeneralJobFIX

WebAppWithoutTestFIX

WebAppWithoutTestNIAZ

NiazSolution

Industry, employers, startups, and amateur developers are increasingly looking towards unit testing their software. Unit testing is one of the most reliable ways to find and keep software bugs at bay, thus reducing costs and development pains. Developers working with the .NET framework are overwhelmingly turning to NUnit to meet their unit testing needs.

In this course, you’ll learn the principles of unit testing, and in the process, learn to configure and use the NUnit testing framework. Given that the course places an emphasis on principles, these skills are transferable to other unit testing frameworks. Alongside these, you’ll also get hands-on experience with projects and exercises that provide ample opportunities to learn how to design effective tests in the NUnit framework.

At the end of the course, you’ll be able to quickly write unit tests that maximize logical coverage, test complex applications, and better organize your testing projects—setting you up as a natural leader in your organization.

Mastering Unit Testing Principles with NUnit

# Introduction

The purpose of this section is to describe the .NET unit testing landscape and its resources. Fortunately, there is an abundance of testing frameworks and related tools from which to choose.

# .NET unit testing frameworks

The design of the testing frameworks below is all based on xUnit and therefore the syntax and design of all three frameworks are similar. If you complete all the lessons in this course, switching from NUnit to any of the other two popular frameworks will be easy. The following are the most common unit testing frameworks in the .NET environment:

| **Unit testing framework**  | **Description**   |
| - | - | - |
|[NUnit](https://nunit.org/)|NUnit is a unit testing framework for all .NET languages. Initially ported from JUnit, the current production release, version 3, has been completely rewritten with many new features and support for a wide range of .NET platforms.   |
|[xUnit&#46;net](https://xunit.net/) | [xUnit&#46;net](https://xunit.net/) is a free, open-source, community-focused unit testing tool for the .NET Framework. Written by the original inventor of NUnit v2, xUnit is the latest technology for unit testing C#, F#, [VB.NET](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/visual-basic/), and other .NET languages.   |
|[MSTest](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/testing/unit-testing-with-mstest)| MSTest is an open-source test framework that is shipped along with the Visual Studio IDE.  | 

# .NET code coverage tools

There are various code coverage tools available. Unfortunately, the options for open-source code coverage tools are severely limited with the only open-source solution being AltCover. Although only AltCover was covered in this course, the principles of code coverage also apply to the other tools.

| **Code coverage tool**  | **Description**   |
| - | - | - |
|[dotCover](https://www.jetbrains.com/dotcover/)|JetBrains' dotCover is a .NET unit test runner and code coverage tool that integrates with Visual Studio and JetBrains Rider.  | 
| [NCover](https://www.ncover.com/)| NCover is one of the most popular .NET code coverage solutions.   | 
|[OpenCover](https://github.com/OpenCover/opencover)| OpenCover is a code coverage tool for .NET 2 and above (Windows OSs only), with support for 32 and 64 processes and covers both branch and sequence points. The Mono framework is not supported. | 
|[NCrunch](https://www.ncrunch.net/)| NCrunch is an automated testing extension for Visual Studio that eases the testing process with its code coverage tools.  | 
|[NDepend](https://www.ndepend.com/)| NDepend conveniently identifies areas of code requiring more tests and provides quality visualizations of code coverage. | 
|[AltCover](https://github.com/SteveGilham/altcover)| An open-source coverage tool for .NET (Framework 2.0+ and Core) and Mono which includes a set of related utilities for processing and displaying the results.  | 

# .NET dependency injection containers

This is the list of all the available Dependency Injection frameworks/containers for the .NET platform:

| **Dependency injection container/framework**  | **Description**   | 
| - | - | - |
|[Microsoft built-in dependency injection framework](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/dependency-injection?view=aspnetcore-6.0)   | The standard Microsoft dependency injection container is available by using the `Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection` namespace.  | 
| [Autofac  ](https://autofac.org/ )| Autofac is an Inversion of Control container for .NET Core, [ASP.NET](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/aspnet) Core, .NET 4.5.1+, Universal Windows applications, and more.  | 
|[Castle Windsor](http://www.castleproject.org/projects/windsor/ )  | Castle Windsor is a quality and mature inversion of control container available for .NET and Silverlight. | 
|[Ninject](http://www.ninject.org/)| Ninject helps you use the technique of dependency injection to break your applications into loosely coupled, highly cohesive components, and then glue them back together in a flexible manner. | 

# .NET mocking frameworks

In this course, we covered the Moq framework. The usage of other frameworks is very similar to Moq. Therefore, upskilling yourself in any of the other mocking frameworks is easy if you understand the Moq framework. The following are the most common mocking frameworks used in .NET:

| **Dependency injection container/framework**  | **Description**   | 
| - | - | - |
|[Moq](https://github.com/moq/moq4)   | Moq (pronounced "Mock-you" or just "Mock") is the only mocking library for .NET developed from scratch to take full advantage of .NET Linq expression trees and lambda expressions. This makes it the most productive, type-safe, and refactoring-friendly mocking library available.   | 
|[NSubstitute](https://nsubstitute.github.io/)   |The NSubstitute mocking framework has a succinct syntax that other frameworks seem to lack. | 
|[FakeItEasy](https://fakeiteasy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/quickstart/)  | This is a .NET dynamic fake library for creating all types of fake objects, mocks, and stubs. | 
|[JustMock](https://www.telerik.com/products/mocking.aspx )| A fast and flexible complete mocking tool for crafting unit tests. | 

# Conclusion

Upon the completion of this lesson, you should have a firm grasp of the various testing frameworks and landscapes, as well as their relative advantages. This course provided practical experience in one framework from each set of testing, code coverage, dependency injection container, and mocking frameworks. Given that the principles within the four framework categories are the same, your knowledge in one framework is easily transferable to the others.

Learn about the most common unit testing frameworks and related tools and where to find the most useful unit testing resources.

Unit Testing Resources

Unit testing framework	Description
NUnit	NUnit is a unit testing framework for all .NET languages. Initially ported from JUnit, the current production release, version 3, has been completely rewritten with many new features and support for a wide range of .NET platforms.
xUnit.net	xUnit.net is a free, open-source, community-focused unit testing tool for the .NET Framework. Written by the original inventor of NUnit v2, xUnit is the latest technology for unit testing C#, F#,

Fundamentals of Unit Testing

Testing Conditions With Classic And Fluent Assertions

Making Unit Testing More Effective

Unit Testing Code with External Dependencies

Conclusion

Appendix - Unit Test Project Organization and Console Setup

Unit Testing Resources

Introduction

.NET unit testing frameworks