How can I keep my unit tests independent of each other in this simple case?

Question

I'm writing a small game in C# using Test Driven Development approach. I'm facing a problem:

I have a class CheckersBoard:

public class CheckersBoard
{
    private const string InitialBoardPattern = "B-B-B-B-" +
                                               "-B-B-B-B" +
                                               "B-B-B-B-" +
                                               "--------" +
                                               "--------" +
                                               "-W-W-W-W" +
                                               "W-W-W-W-" +
                                               "-W-W-W-W";

    public SquareStatus[,] Squares { get; private set; }

    public CheckersBoard(IBoardGenerator boardGenerator)
    {
        Squares = boardGenerator.GenerateFromPattern(InitialBoardPattern, 8, 8);
    }

    //....
}

And a class BoardGenerator:

public class BoardGenerator : IBoardGenerator
{

    public SquareStatus[,] GenerateFromPattern(string pattern, int width, int height)
    {
        //....
    }

}

BoardGenerator allows me to initialize CheckersBoard in a very readable way. So, I really would like to use BoardGenerator in my unit tests to avoid ugly array initialization.

But it's against the rule that says that I must keep all my unit tests independent of each other. If the test of GenerateFromPattern fails, that will produce a "cascade" effect and all the tests which use GenerateFromPattern will fail too.

This is the first time I have ever used unit tests so I'm a little bit confused. How can I avoid this problem? Is there something wrong with my design?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

Apparently this is a common problem without obvious answer, and I happened to deal with two similar questions:

Reusing business logic in unit test - advising against, because OP talks about 2 different components (similar to your case)
Using tested function to prepare another unit test - advising for, given then usage is scoped to single class (so that new bugs won't possibly crash some totally unrelated component, but instead all will remain within original "crashing scope")

To certain level, reusing business logic (other, tested components) is kind of similar to using 3rd party libraries in unit testing - we assume they work, and don't bother generating extra assertions about them. Will you have any hesitations to use List<T> in unit test? Most likely no. Note however, that List<T> is tested by many other developers daily and has big software house behind it. Can you say the same about BoardGenerator?

Another question to consider is, will the CheckersBoard test code be as obvious to somebody who never worked on BoardGenerator as it is to you? You claim it is readable, but that's common given the authoring. Maybe using array initialization is not as bad (unreadable) as you think it is.

Thank you very much for your answer! As I said this is my first project where I'm using unit tests. I'm just trying to familiarize myself with the concept. So, I wanted to make sure I know how to face a similar problem in the future. It seems clarified to me now, thank you! — Simon V., Sep 05 '12 at 14:08

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 05 '12 at 12:58

1

You could mock your BoardGenerator class or just fake the implementation e.g.

internal class MockBoardGenerator : IBoardGenerator
{
    public SquareStatus[,] GenerateFromPattern(string pattern, int width, int height)
    {
        // return fixed test data
    }
}

answered Sep 05 '12 at 12:58

James

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Thank you for your answer, but I'm already mocking it. My problem is I want to initialize my game board in my tests in a readable way to keep them easy to understand. So I really want to use a string initialization instead of an array initialization. – Simon V. Sep 05 '12 at 13:03
@user1642427 Sorry you hadn't mentioned that you were already mocking your board in your original question. "*I really want to use a string initialization instead of an array initialization*" - Couldn't you have your `BoardGenerator` support the 2 methods and just the string one for testing? – James Sep 05 '12 at 13:23
Yes, I didn't express myself very well. Sorry for that. `GenerateFromPattern` is a sort a helper method to initialize my board elegantly. So I actually need it both in my production project and in my testing project. I need its **real** implementation to make my tests more readable. Maybe a solution could be to clone it in my testing project. I'll have a sort of BoardHelper static class wich will do the same job in my testing project. But's it sounds a little bit ugly to me... – Simon V. Sep 05 '12 at 13:45
Sounds like you would want to use the [Strategy pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_pattern) for this. That way you can have a separate `TestBoardGenerator` class which overrides the behaviour of `GenerateFromPattern`. – James Sep 05 '12 at 13:56
That's a misunderstanding. I don't want to override anything of `TestBoardGenerator`. I want to use the default implementation of `GenerateFromPattern` method as it in my unit tests. So the question was : "Can I use this method in another unit test and assumes it works?". jimmy_keen's anwer is very informative about this problem. Thank you for your help @James ! – Simon V. Sep 05 '12 at 15:18

How can I keep my unit tests independent of each other in this simple case?

2 Answers2