Best way to unit test console c# app
c#, nunit, unit-testing
Solution
I would suggest restructuring your application into:
- `Program` - an entry point which parses the arguments, creating a `Settings` instance
- `Settings` - settings for the application (rename according to taste)
- `BusinessClass` - (definitely rename!) the actual work, which accepts a `Settings` instance
Now you can test things separately:
- Test the parsing into `Settings`, i.e. are you using the parser library correctly
- Your business logic, where the unit tests create appropriate instances of `Settings`
If possible, you should separate your business logic into separate classes for separate concerns of course, and test each separately. We don't really know enough to make concrete suggestions here.
Problem
I have a simple console app. It's fired of with a normal main and the entire program recides in main. It uses the Command Line Parser Library. Then I have a second project in the solution containing unit tests for the application. But I don't seem to find a good way to start processes of the main program from the tests. My current code for actually start the process looks something like this. ``` ... process = new Process(); process.StartInfo.FileName = "FooBar"; process.StartInfo.Arguments = arguments; // use it to start from testing environment process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; // redirect outputs to have it in testing console process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true; process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true; ... ``` I have tried setting ``` process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory ``` to ``` AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory ``` and ``` Environment.CurrentDirectory; ``` But do I have to specify the entire relative path for the console applications executable or is there a refined way of starting processes of the "tested" application? First I had my tests as a class in the "main" program and then it worked just fine. The issues started when I moved the tests to their own project. That's why I suspect a path being the issue or something of that nature. I also tried Running Program.Main but that just feels so wrong :)