Quick tip: How to do TDD/BDD and debug unit tests with Visual Studio Express editions

Introduction

This article will show you how you can do TDD/BDD with Visual Studio Express editions. While most people say it is not possible, it is actually pretty easy.

Prerequisites

How do you do it ?

  1. Open your project in Visual Studio Express
  2. Add a new class project, name it [Project].Specs
  3. Add a reference to the testlib you want to use with Nuget (Right click on the project references and choose "Manage Nuget Packages") - I use MSpec a lot.
  4. Start AutoTest.Net, after you configured it for the testlib (adjust AutoTest.config file for the correct testrunner)
  5. Start writing your specs
  6. Every time you save a file, your project is compiled and your tests are ran
That is all you need; pretty simple actually, is it not ?
There is also the possibility to have notifications and stuff like that, but I currently do not use them.

But wait, what if I need to debug a test ?

As I sometimes only do integration tests, I need the ability to debug these tests. But there is no option to do this in the Express editions, or is there ?

Well, this took me a bit longer to find out, but once you know how to do this it is pretty easy:
  1. Right click on your spec project, and choose "Unload project"
  2. Right click the unloaded project and choose "edit [xxx].Specs.csproj", you will see an XML
  3. Find the matching PropertyGroup for your configuration (usually <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' "> )?
  4. Add the following child items in the property group (I used mspec as an example here):
    <PropertyGroup Condition=" '$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'Debug|AnyCPU' ">
      ....
      <StartAction>Program</StartAction>
      <StartProgram>C:\Users\Public\Documents\OudePc\Projecten\Org.NerdBeers\src\Org.NerdBeers\packages\Machine.Specifications.0.4.24.0\tools\mspec-x86-clr4.exe</StartProgram>
      <StartArguments>Org.Nerdbeers.specs.dll</StartArguments>
      <StartWorkingDirectory>C:\Users\Public\Documents\OudePc\Projecten\Org.NerdBeers\src\Org.NerdBeers\Org.NerdBeers.Specs\bin\Debug</StartWorkingDirectory>
</PropertyGroup>
  5. Save and close the .csproj file
  6. Right click on the project and reload it
  7. Set a breakpoint in the test you want to debug
  8. Right click again on the project, and.....
  9. ... you can now choose "Debug this project"  !!!

Final words

While this approach takes a few minutes to setup, it is definetely not that hard to do. In fact, I just copy the test exes and settings over from another project whenever I need to do it a second time on the same machine. At least this approach will allow you to do proper TDD/BDD with the Express editions of Visual Studio.

 

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