Developer News

Improved support for MbUnit, xUnit and GallioThe main focus of

Improved support for MbUnit, xUnit and Gallio

The main focus of the TestDriven.Net 2.18 release has been to improve support for test runner plug-ins in general (not just NUnit). If you re using xUnit, MbUnit or Gallio I recommend you upgrade to this version.

Automatic support for 64-bit machines

The registry layout on 64-bit machines is plain weird and full of pitfalls for the unwary. The registry layout is different depending on whether you re installing under HKLM or HKCU. Under HKLM the SOFTWARE key is split and test runner plug-ins needed to be registered twice in order to work in both 32 and 64-bit processes. There is no such split under HKCU and plug-ins installed there only needed to be registered once.

This created the unfortunate situation where plug-ins installed for all users wouldn t work when running in a 64-bit process, but plug-ins installed just for me would work fine. Rather than expect plug-in developers to deal with this weirdness, I ve made some changes to automatically support plug-ins that aren t 64-bit aware.

If you have an assembly that needs to work on 32 and 64-bit machines, you may find the following snippet useful:

    public static RegistryKey OpenSoftwareKey(bool hklm, string name) 
    { 
        string fullName = @"SOFTWARE"; 
        if (hklm) 
        { 
            if (Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(IntPtr)) ==  
            { 
                fullName += @"\Wow6432Node"; 
            } 
            return Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(fullName + @"\" + name); 
        } 

        return Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(fullName + @"\" + name); 
    } 

The following ad-hoc test will display TestDriven.Net s install directory (assuming TestDriven.Net is installed for all users ):

    void test() 
    { 
        using(var key = OpenSoftwareKey(true, @"MutantDesign\TestDriven.NET")) 
        { 
            Console.WriteLine(key.GetValue("InstallDir")); 
        } 
    }

Better support for ah-hoc tests

In previous versions of TestDriven.Net, a test runner plug-in was required to explicitly signal when none of its tests were found for execution. This would give other test runners (such as the ad-hoc test runner) a chance to handle the test. Unfortunately most test runners have been signaling a successful test run when tests were found but none were targeted.

I ve changed it so the ad-hoc test runner will automatically get a chance to execute if no tests were executed and the test runner plug-in indicated a successful test run. The upshot of this is that you can now have ad-hoc side-by-side with MbUnit or xUnit tests.

If you re using xUnit, try doing Run Test(s) on each of the following methods:

    [Fact] 
    public void TestMe() 
    { 
        Console.WriteLine("Console output isn’t displayed when using xUnit"); 
        Assert.True(false, "Comment out [Fact] and run as ad-hoc test!  "); 
    } 

    void hello() 
    { 
        Trace.WriteLine("Hello, World!"); 
    } 

    void dump() 
    { 
        Trace.WriteLine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain, "_verbose"); 
    }

(ad-hoc tests should work side-by-side with all other test framework methods as well)

Improved performance when executing with Gallio / MbUnit v3

Gallio is a test runner that supports many different test types (MbUnit, xUnit, NUnit, MSTest and more). It has its own plug-in architecture and it doesn t use the default TestDriven.Net app domain test isolation. This makes Gallio very flexible, but it also meant it wasn t appropriate to setup and tear down the Gallio engine for each test run.

I ve made some changes to allow Gallio to stay resident in the test process. This has significantly improved performance (especially for short test runs). If you re using Gallio/MbUnit v3, try upgrading to Gallio v3.0.5 build 546 and see how much of a different it makes.

Feedback

There have been lots of other changes which you can find in the release notes. If you notice any new issues, please don t hesitate to let me know!

SQLBits - Introduction to XML, Performance Tuning SQL and SQL Injection
I’ve submitted a couple of sessions for SQLBits IV You can see the sessions that have been submitted so far by going here -Submitted Sessions -

TestDriven.Net 2.13: Support for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1

I’ve just uploaded a new version of TestDriven.Net with support for Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1. Microsoft have certainly kept me on my toes as there have been lots of changes since Silverlight 1.1. I’m sorry it has taken a while!

At the moment you’re limited to running individual public methods (ad-hoc tests). If you need to run a suite of tests I recommend you use this in conjunction with the Silverlight Testing Framework that was released at MIX. Jeff Wilcox has posted a detailed tutorial that shows how to use the framework here. When running your tests using ‘Test With > Silverlight’, bear in mind that you’re simply executing the test method and any test attributes (TestInitialize etc.) will be ignored.

I’ve also included an application called ‘agx.exe’ that lets you run console applications using the Silverlight/CoreCLR from the command line. After you’ve installed TestDriven.Net you will find this standalone application here: \Program Files\TestDriven.NET 2.0\agx.exe. This is simply an application that I use for my own testing purposes that I thought other people might find useful.

You can download the new version of TestDriven.Net from here.