Active Record and Fake In Memory Repositories in Test Driven Development

Introduction

Here is a simple example of how to use fake repositories in test driven development.

By using Fake Repositories generated from a binary file we are able to quickly use ‘real data’ in all our tests.

It is a Visual Studio 2008 solution and uses the Castle project’s Active Record as an ORM.

Step 1 – Our Core Model

The model will consist of 3 classes

- SuperHero e.g. Superman
    - SupeHeroId
    - RealName
    - SuperHeroName
- Power e.g. Flight
    - PowerId
    - PowerName
- SuperHeroPower e.g. Superman’s flight
    - SuperHeroPowerId
    - Comments (e.g. Faster than a speeding bullet)

Each of our classes implements an Interface called IIdRetriever

 /// <summary> 
 /// This was created so that the BaseRepositoryFake class can provide a standard 
 /// implementation for fake repositories despite not knowing what property holds 
 /// the Id. 
 /// </summary> 
 public interface IIdRetriever 
 { 
     int GetId(); 
     void SetId(int id); 
 }

First we define a base interface that defines all our methods needed for an ‘in-memory’ database

This base interface is called IRepository

public interface IRepository<T> where T : class
{
    T Save(T item);
    T SaveOrUpdate(T item);
    T Get(objectid);
    long Count();
    ICollection<T> FindAll(params ICriterion[] criteria);
    void Delete(T item);
}     

Now for each class we need a repository so we define 3 repository interfaces that implement the IRepository interface with their corresponding class

• ISuperHeroRepository
• IPowerRepository

• ISuperHeroPowerRepository

  public interface ISuperHeroRepository : IRepository{}

Now for the concrete implementations of our repositories the following classes are created

• SuperHeroRepository
• PowerRepository

• SuperHeroPowerRepository

  public class PowerRepository : ARRepository, IPowerRepository{}

Step 2 – Create the database, populate data and generate the binary file

In the attached project there is a command line utility project that accepts 3 arguments

• CreateSchema – will create the tables in the designated database in the app.config
• PopulateData – will populate the tables with some sample data
• GenerateBinary – will get our ‘core’ object which contains relations to all our data and binary serialize it into a file

Step 3 – Creating our fakes for use in tests

We will now create fake ‘in-memory’ repositories which use the pre-populated binary data for use in out tests

Firstly there are some integration tests in the database which ensure the add/edit behaviour is correct when talking to the database.

Secondly there is a folder entitled Fakes

The main file here is the BaseRepositoryFake which contains all our base methods to mimic a database – yet in memory through an internal collection.

By inheriting this class our other fake repositories get the ability to Save,SaveOrUpdate,Delete and find all.

Our inheriting fake repositories are as follows

• SuperHeroPowerRepositoryFake
• PowerHeroRepositoryFake
• SuperHeroPowerRepositoryFake

These simply inherit the BaseRepositoryFake and implement their corresponding interface

public class SuperHeroRepositoryFake : BaseRepositoryFake<SuperHero>, ISuperHeroRepository

An explanation of the files in the root of the Tests project

• ActiveRecordFixture – singleton one time setup for active record
• RandomHelper – Set Ids and values for our fake objects (As SQL Server identity columns these will be seeded in the DB)
• SeededRepositoryFakes – contains a fake representation of each repository (e.g. SuperHeroRepository) – data is read from the binary file in these
• SeededRepositoryFakesCountTest – test to ensure the SeededRepositoryFakes are filled
• SuperHeroSeed – class that reads from the binary file

Published: 07/08/2008

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