Is there an in-memory provider for Entity Framework?

Question

I am unit testing code written against the ADO .NET Entity Framework. I would like to populate an in-memory database with rows, and make sure that my code retrieves them pro

Answer 1

The article http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/460175/Two-strategies-for-testing-Entity-Framework-Effort  describes Effort  -Entity Framework provider that runs in memory.

You can still use your DbContext or ObjectContext classes within unit tests, without having to have an actual database.

Answer 2

A better approach here might be to use the Repository pattern to encapsulate your EF code. When testing your services you can use mocks or fakes. When testing your repositories you will want to hit the real DB to ensure that you are getting the results you expect.