Can we unit test View ('V') of MVC?

Question

Duplicate: Unit Testing the Views?

Is there any way to unit test View? I am sure that we can test Model & Controller but don\'t know

Answer 1

From what I have read (in Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework by Steven Sanderson), views are not considered worth testing. ASP.NET MVC viewes can be generated using various engines, e.g. the default lightweight ASPX, or for example http://www.stringtemplate.org/. For ASPX output you might run some HTML syntax checker tool, and for other view engines the fact that the views compile successfully should be a good enough test ;)

Answer 2

I do not see the point of unit testing the views, since they don't contain much logic. You can however to some integration testing/UI testing using a tool like WatiN.

Example of a test written in WatiN:

[Test]
public void SearchForWatiNOnGoogle()
{
   using (IE ie = new IE("http://www.google.com"))
   {
      ie.TextField(Find.ByName("q")).TypeText("WatiN");
      ie.Button(Find.ByName("btnG")).Click();

      Assert.IsTrue(ie.ContainsText("WatiN"));
  }
}

You should not try to test everything using tool like this. Select some key functionality of the application, and write test for them.

Answer 3

For those who do not see the value in testing views.... How can you be sure that the view has the right attributes on elements, or that it is bound correctly?

Many answer "at a higher level" (such as running the site and using tools such as selenium or equivalent).

However these techniques make it virtually impossible to prove that the source of the error is in the view itself and also require massive changes to the server side code so that the views can be rendered in a targeted manner.

Answer 4

Haven't views abandoned code behind now? So what are you going to test? If you are testing the controller, then you just need a succesful view result to show that the view works. Rather than going to the trouble of pre compiling views or whatever, this will start to drag any sizeable project down in terms of continuous integration, and build.

Answer 5

You can enable compilation of MVC views. That helps a lot. Otherwise, I don't think it is worth it. After all, the there are only two things that you are interested in. Does view compile and do you get any exceptions (null, out of bounds exceptions, or similar)?

There are some folks who claim that you should not include any logic in view. Write helpers for anything. In that case, compilation is pretty much everything you'll want.

We decided to invest into WatiN testing. It tests views and it tests the whole app at the same time. Has some nice helpers, but requires constant maintainance.