Creating recursive tree with AutoFixture

Question

I have just started using AutoFixture and have this semi-complex data structure that I would like to create some specimen for. In the tests I am working with I don\'t care

Answer 1

Creating A with an empty list of Bs

It's easy to create an instance of A with an empty list of Bs:

var fixture = new Fixture();
fixture.Inject(Enumerable.Empty<B>());

var a = fixture.Create<A>();

Creating a small tree

It's much more difficult to create a small tree, but it's possible. You're already on track with your thinking about RecursionGuard. In order to verify if this could work, I copied most of the code from RecursionGuard and created this DepthRecursionGuard as a proof of concept:

public class DepthRecursionGuard : ISpecimenBuilderNode
{
    private readonly ISpecimenBuilder builder;
    private readonly Stack<object> monitoredRequests;

    public DepthRecursionGuard(ISpecimenBuilder builder)
    {
        if (builder == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("builder");
        }

        this.monitoredRequests = new Stack<object>();
        this.builder = builder;
    }

    public object Create(object request, ISpecimenContext context)
    {
        if (this.monitoredRequests.Count(request.Equals) > 1)
            return this.HandleRecursiveRequest(request);

        this.monitoredRequests.Push(request);
        var specimen = this.builder.Create(request, context);
        this.monitoredRequests.Pop();
        return specimen;
    }

    private object HandleRecursiveRequest(object request)
    {
        if (typeof(IEnumerable<B>).Equals(request))
            return Enumerable.Empty<B>();

        throw new InvalidOperationException("boo hiss!");
    }

    public ISpecimenBuilderNode Compose(IEnumerable<ISpecimenBuilder> builders)
    {
        var builder = ComposeIfMultiple(builders);
        return new DepthRecursionGuard(builder);
    }

    public virtual IEnumerator<ISpecimenBuilder> GetEnumerator()
    {
        yield return this.builder;
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return this.GetEnumerator();
    }

    private static ISpecimenBuilder ComposeIfMultiple(
        IEnumerable<ISpecimenBuilder> builders)
    {
        var isSingle = builders.Take(2).Count() == 1;
        if (isSingle)
            return builders.Single();

        return new CompositeSpecimenBuilder(builders);
    }
}

Notice the changed implementation of the Create method, as well as the specific handling of IEnumerable<B> in HandleRecursiveRequest.

In order to make this usable from a Fixture instance, I also added this DepthRecursionBehavior:

public class DepthRecursionBehavior : ISpecimenBuilderTransformation
{
    public ISpecimenBuilder Transform(ISpecimenBuilder builder)
    {
        return new DepthRecursionGuard(builder);
    }
}

This enabled me to create a small tree:

var fixture = new Fixture();
fixture.Behaviors.OfType<ThrowingRecursionBehavior>()
    .ToList().ForEach(b => fixture.Behaviors.Remove(b));
fixture.Behaviors.Add(new DepthRecursionBehavior());

var a = fixture.Create<A>();

While this is possible, it's, in my opinion, too hard, so I've created a work item to make it easier in the future.

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Update 2013.11.13: From AutoFixture 3.13.0, the recursion depth can be configured via that API.