BDD Testing using Fluent Assertions and NUnit with .NET Core

Welcome to today’s post.

I will discuss how to create unit tests within a .NET Core test application using a BDD test utility.

What is BDD? BDD is Behavioral Driven Testing.

BDD is a natural way to write unit tests for applications. It uses natural language syntax that makes the unit tests and assertions easier to implement by testers and less technical staff that are involved in the testing process.

It structures tests into features with scenarios. These are equivalent to test scripts.

I will show how to use the BDD third-party tool Fluent Assertions within Visual Studio 2017. To be able to use Fluent Assertions to develop BDD tests you will require the installation of the NuGet package:

FluentAssertions

To be able to use Fluent Assertions in an NUnit test class requires the following namespace:

using FluentAssertions;

In an NUnit unit test we are familiar with the following pattern that is used to assert test conditions:

Assert.AreEqual(1, result.Count);

The above will work in NUnit, however if we try the equivalent Assert using Fluent Assertions:

Assert.IsTrue(result.Should().HaveCount(1).Equals(true));

This will not work as expected. We will get an invalid return value.

The structure we need to use is an assertion scope to wrap the assertion within a disposable block:           

using (new AssertionScope())
{
  .. your fluent assertion(s) here .. 

  Assert.Pass();
}

To use assertion scopes will require the inclusion of the following namespace:

using FluentAssertions.Execution;

Our unit test to list the books looks as follows:

[Test]
public void ListBooksTest() 
{
  var book = new BookViewModel() { ID = 1, Author = "W.Smith", 
    Title = "Rivers Run Dry", YearPublished = 1954 };
  context.Add(book);
  context.SaveChanges();

  book = new BookViewModel() { ID = 2, Author = "D.Lee", 
     Title = "Red Mine", YearPublished = 1968 };
  context.Add(book);
  context.SaveChanges();

  book = new BookViewModel() { ID = 3, Author = "V.Prescott", 
     Title = "Boundary Rider", YearPublished = 1974 };
  context.Add(book);
  context.SaveChanges();

  var bookService = new BookService(context, null);
  var books = bookService.GetBooks().GetAwaiter();

  var result = books.GetResult();

  using (new AssertionScope())
  {
    result.Should().HaveCount(3);
    Assert.Pass();
  }
}

Whenever a fluent assertion runs without error it will continue onto the next line of code, and in the above code will pass the unit test.

Whenever a fluent assertion runs and fails an assertion (and throws an exception), it will continue until all subsequent fluent assertions are run within the assertion scope and return a list of exceptions.

If an assertion fails within one of the unit tests, we will see the error message shown in the test explorer:

A standard NUnit unit test contains a number of test assertions.

{
  Assert.IsTrue({some condition 1})
  Assert.IsTrue({some condition 2})
	..
  Assert.IsTrue({some condition N})
}

The above throws an error when the first assertion fails. With fluent assertions we can combine the assertions and have any errors be silently collected at the end of an assertion scope block:

using (new AssertionScope())
{
  Subject1.Should()..

  Subject2.Should()..

  ..
  SubjectN.Should()..

  Assert.Pass();
}

When the unit test is run, any errors that show up in the test explorer as shown will be combined in a summary message:

Message: Did not expect loanReturnResult.Item1.LoanedBy to be empty.Did not expect 
loanReturnResult.Item1.DateDue.DayOfYear to be 126.

As we have seen, Fluent Assertions is quite a powerful BDD testing package that can help business and test analysts work more effectively with developers to produce more effective application unit tests that are self-documenting.  

I hope you found this post useful and informative.

For further details, the link to Fluent Assertions is here:

https://fluentassertions.com/introduction

shows more details and examples on how to use this BDD tool.

I will look at other BDD test tools in a future post and how to integrate BDD tools into a CI tool like TeamCity.

That is all for today’s post.

I hope you found this post enjoyable and informative.

Andrew Halil

Andrew Halil is a blogger, author and software developer with expertise of many areas in the information technology industry including full-stack web and native cloud based development, test driven development and Devops.