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xUnit.net Unit Test Framework

2:47 with Jeremy McLain

Unit test frameworks make unit testing much easier.

MSTest Documentation

NUnit Documentation

xUnit.net Documentation

  • 0:00

    Over the years, many tools have been developed to make unit testing easier.

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    A unit test is simply a method that executes the code under test and

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    checks to see if it got the expected results.

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    We could do this right from the main method of a console application.

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    However, after writing many unit tests,

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    you'd start to see a pattern in how these tests are set up and run.

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    You'd eventually create a framework that all of your unit tests can use.

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    Fortunately, there are many such frameworks already available for .NET.

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    There are three main frameworks.

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    MSTest which is also known as the Visual Studio Unit Testing Framework,

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    NUnit and xUnit.net.

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    All three of these frameworks are based off of one of the first

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    popular unit testing frameworks for Java called jUnit.

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    They all work relatively the same, though.

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    Together these frameworks and

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    others like them are referred to as the xUnit family of unit test frameworks.

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    Of these three frameworks for .NET, xUnit.net is the most popular and

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    the one that has the most active development.

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    It's also the one we'll be using in this course.

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    You may work on projects that use one of the other frameworks and that's okay.

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    Everything you'll learn in this course can be applied

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    to any of this family of unit testing frameworks.

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    That said you'll often hear me refer xUnit.net as just xUnit.

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    Just know that I'm only referring to xUnit.net and

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    not the family of frameworks as a whole.

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    One great thing about unit testing frameworks is that they often work

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    well with IDEs such as Visual Studio, which means we can execute,

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    debug, and get the results of our unit test without leaving the IDE.

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    To do that, we'll want to install an extension to Visual Studio.

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    The Outercurve Foundation,

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    which is one of the open source companies supported by Microsoft,

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    has made using xUnit.net really easy by creating an extension to Visual Studio.

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    This extension helps with generating test projects that come complete with

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    everything we need to create and run tests.

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    To install it, just click Tools, Extensions and Updates.

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    Now over here click on Online.

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    Over in the search box, just type in xunit.

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    Here we see a number of extensions and templates that have to do with xUnit.

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    The one we want is called xUnit.net Test Extensions.

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    It's created by Outercurve Foundation.

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    I just click Download here to install it.

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    You may have to click the Restart Now button to restart Visual Studio to enjoy

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    this extension.

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    There we go, that's all we need to do.

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    We'll take a closer look at what this extension does for us in the next video.

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