Unit test wiring of MVC, FluentValidation, and Ninject - asp.net-mvc

Question

I have set up an MVC web project with FluentValidation and Ninject using the Ninject.Extensions.Mvc.FluentValidation package. I followed the documentation of that package directly.
I'd like to write an automated test that verifies this wiring, and checks that the model validation will use the FluentValidation validators as expected. I'm having a hard time spinning up the right pieces of the MVC application in my test in order to do this.
Basically, I want to spin up the MVC app enough so that the Ninject kernel is created, the model binders are wired, and validators are created. Then I want to try to validate an entity through the MVC model validation and make sure that expected messages from the validator are showing up.
What is the best way to automating the testing of the interaction between Ninject, MVC, and FluentValidation?

Answer 1

I have similar setup but I use Unity instead of Ninject.
My IoC container inherits UnityContainer where I register all my repos, validarots, etc. I benefit from this because I have validators with repo dependencies (e.g. UserRegistrationValidator checks for unique user names).
My IoC container also implements IValidatorFactory. I use it register a global ModelValidatorProvider like this:
var ioc = new IoCContainer();
ModelValidatorProviders.Providers.Add(new FluentValidationModelValidatorProvider(ioc));
DataAnnotationsModelValidatorProvider.AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes = false;
With this setup I know that my validators will intercept model validation in controller actions but only if validators are resolved by ValidatorFactory.
So basically I have 2 groups of tests
- IoC tests
With these I test if my IoC container can resolve a validator for a model. With Unity it looks something like this:
// Arrange
var ioc = new IoCContainer();
// Assert
Assert.IsTrue(ioc.IsRegistered(IValidator<MyModel>));
If you have all your models under one namespace you could even write a single unit test by getting all types from specific namespace and check if IValidator is registered for them in a loop.
- Validator tests
These are common tests to test my (view)models:
// Arrange
var validator = new MyModelValidator();
var model = new MyModel{ Name = null };
// Assert
validator.ShouldHaveValidationErrorFor(x => x.Name, model)
With this there is no need to spin application, you just test what you create.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

What we use here for the integration test is Selenium Webdriver, you can get it with NuGet. We write code usign page pattern so it's easyer to maintain.
When I want to check if a requiered field or any other custom validation I do the following :
[TestFixture]
public class CenterTests : TestBase
{
[Test]
public void CreateViewAndEditShouldWork()
{
S.OpenWithCI();
var loginPage = new LoginPage(S);
var homePage = loginPage.LoginValidUser("email", "Password");
var centerListPage = homePage.ClickCenterAndRoomLink();
var centerPage = centerListPage.ClickCreateLink();
//Create
centerPage.CreateInvalidCenter();
Assert.That(S.FindElement(By.CssSelector("span[for=Name]")).Text, Is.StringContaining(Strings.Error_Required));
Assert.That(S.FindElement(By.CssSelector("span[for=EnglishName]")).Text, Is.StringContaining(Strings.Error_Required));
centerListPage = centerPage.CreateValidCenter("Saguenay", "Sag", "2089 blv Talbot");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
S.ExpectSuccessNotice(Strings.CenterCreatedSuccessfully);
}
}
And here's the code of my TestBase helper class :
namespace Afi.AutomatedTests.Helpers
{
[TestFixture]
public class TestBase
{
protected IWebDriver S;
[SetUp]
public virtual void TestSetup()
{
S = new ChromeDriver();
S.Manage().Window.Size = new Size(1024, 768);
S.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
}
[TearDown]
public void TearDown()
{
S.Quit();
}
public string GetUrl(string relativePath)
{
if(!relativePath.StartsWith("/"))
throw new ArgumentException("Relative URL must begins with /");
return "http://afi.local" + relativePath;
}
}
}
All those tests are in an other project call AutomatedTests and I can run them the same way I run unit test (resharper/nunit). It uses Chromedriver to do the tests.
Let me know if you need more informations.