Silverlight: Unit Testing

[This was originally posted at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/silverlight_unit_testing.htm]

Silverlight 1.1 lets you use C# code, which is awesome. However, the next natural question for a developer is "How will I test that code?" For example, any silverlight game, like the TruckWars game that I've been blogging about, has lots of backend logic for collision detection, movement algorithms, interactions between units, checking for victory conditions, etc... Ideally, you could follow the standard pattern of having a core assembly with all the logic (a Silverlight class library), exposed with just a light GUI wrapper (a Silverlight project). Then you could add that class library to a test harness (like MSTest) and do Test-Driven-Development.

 

The problem is that Silverlight doesn't let you mix Silverlight and non-Silverlight assemblies. So, you can't add your SL class library to a test harness (like MSTest), nor can you even add an assembly to your Silverlight library (like NUnit). [If there's a way to do this, I haven't seen it yet, and I'm all ears].

 

So, there is a work-around. What you could do is create an MSTest project, and then place your Silverlight class library in a child folder of that MSTest project. Then each project has references to all the same physical files.

 

For example, have a Test solution at:

    FolderSilverlight\Tank\Tank.Test\Tank.Test.csproj

 

And then your silverlight class library, called "SilverlightUtilities", as a child:

    FolderSilverlight\Tank\Tank.Test\SilverlightUtilities\SilverlightUtilities.csproj

 

Then, say you have a silverlight file to test, like "MathHelper.cs", located in the SilverlightUtilities:

    FolderSilverlight\Tank\Tank.Test\SilverlightUtilities\MathHelper.cs

   

Both projects, "Tank.Test" and "SilverlightUtilities" can have references to the same physical file, "MathHelper.cs" (there is only one copy of this file, but it gets referenced by two projects). Essentially, this means that the Tank.Test Project includes both the source code, and the test code.

 

Note, you'll need to give the Test project references to several Silverlight prerequisites:

• agclr - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\agclr.dll

• System.Core - C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Core.dll

• System.Silverlight - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\System.Silverlight.dll

• System.Xml.Core - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Silverlight\System.Xml.Core.dll

This does mean that as you add each new C# file, you have to build two projects, but an automated script should make that easy.

 

Also, I still haven't found a way to test code that uses Xaml (like a Silverlight Control). I keep getting the error:

 

    Project file must include the .NET Framework assembly 'WindowsBase, PresentationCore, PresentationFramework' in the reference list.

 

I'm sure there's a way to deal with this, but I haven't found it yet.

 

I hope that because Silverlight is still a beta, that Microsoft will eventually make it easier to unit test. In the meantime, it's good to be able to continue writing tests, even on Silverlight.