.NET testing framework advice

Question

I\'m looking to introduce a unit testing framework into the mix at my job. We\'re using Visual Studio 2005 (though we may be moving to 2008 within the next six months) and

Answer 1

Try also the PEX tool.

It's Microsoft's own, probably soon to be integrated into VSTS. It does support NUnit, MbUnit and xUnit.net.

I also use a small console application for testing one class or a small library. You could copy paste the code from here.

Answer 2

I would say MbUnit also. I like being able to run a single test many times just by specifying inputs and the result is right above the test function. It is a horrible description of what I mean, so here is a link that shows you what I mean.

Answer 3

Scott Hanselman had a good podcast about this, entitled:

"The Past, Present and Future of .NET Unit Testing Frameworks"

:

Hanselminutes #112

Answer 4

The built-in unit testing in Visual Studio 2008 is all right, but its difficult to integrate with CruiseControl.NET, certainly a lot harder than normal NUnit.

So go with NUnit if you plan to have nice automated tests.

Answer 5

Visual Studio 2008 has a built-in test project type that works in a similar way to NUnit, but obviously has much tighter integration with Visual Studio (can run on every build and shows the results in a similar way to the conversion results page when upgrading solution files), but it is obviously not as mature as NUnit as it's pretty new and I'm not sure about how it handles mocking.

But it would be worth looking into when your team moves to Visual Studio 2008.

Answer 6

I think NUnit is your best bet. With TestDriven.NET, you get great integration within Visual Studio. (ReSharper also has a unit test runner if you're using it). NUnit is simple to use and follows an established paradigm. You'll also find plenty of projects, tutorials, and guides using it which always helps.

Your other main choice is probably MbUnit, which is more and more positioning itself as the BDD framework of choice (in conjunction with Gallio).