Tag: ConfigurationSection

How to unit test a config file, (ConfigurationSection)

To unit test a ConfigurationSection in c# you need to do a couple of thing in your unit test
Of course, we do not want to change anything in the assembly being tested.

  • Create your own ConfigurationSection class
  • ‘Fake’ your own configuration file.
  • Test that you have the expected behaviour
    • For required values
    • Optional values

In your test application, create your own configuration loader class
It uses your configuration section as a template.

  internal class Loader where T : ConfigurationSection
  {
    // The filename that will contain the test contents.
    private string _fileName;
 
    // the instance we are testing
    public T Instance { get; }
 
    // the section we want to 'test' as well as the complete fake content
    public Loader(string section, string content)
    {
      File.WriteAllText(FileName, content);
      if (File.Exists(FileName))
      {
        var fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap
        {
          ExeConfigFilename = FileName
        };
        var config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None, true);
        Instance = config.GetSection(section) as T;
      }
    }

Of course we also need to clean up things a little.
The file we created needs to be removed, you could also have this in your test teardown.

    ~Loader()
    {
      if (_fileName != null)
      {
        try
        {
          File.Delete(_fileName);
        }
        catch
        {
          // it will get deleted at some other point.
          // as it is a temp file the OS will/should remove ut
        }
        _fileName = null;
      }
    }

Creating the fake test file.

    private string FileName
    {
      get
      {
        if (_fileName != null)
        {
          return _fileName;
        }
        _fileName = Path.GetTempPath() + Guid.NewGuid() + ".config";
        return _fileName;
      }
    }
  }

Now testing the config is fairly straight forward, (using NUnit in this case)

(using the sample config content, my parser does not escape it properl)

<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name=""blah"" type=""BlahConfiguration,MyApp.Blah"" />
</configSections>
<blah>
</blah>
</configuration>

    // in this example BlahConfiguration allows no values 
    public void SectionCanBeEmpty()
    {
      // sample configuration file.
      const string content =  // see content above;
 
      Loader<BlahConfiguration> cl = null;
      Assert.DoesNotThrow( () => cl = new ConfigLoader<BlahConfiguration>("blah", content));
      Assert.That( cl.Instance.Strings.Count == 0 );
    }

So now you can create your tests and just pass the values you want to test, default values for example, that values are loaded properly and so on.