I'm starting to develop and organize tests for a very large Visual Studio solution. (Yes, I know that tests should have been developed along with the code rather than when the project is nearly complete, but things are what they are.)
I've seen similar questions about organizing unit tests in Visual Studio solutions, but I didn't see any that address integration tests as well. I would appreciate some guidance about where to place test projects so that they don't clutter up the already large code base.
Here's the basic hierarchy of things within the solution. (All items not ending in .proj are folders within a project or Solution Folders.)
HardwareServices
HardwareService1
HardwareService1.Core.proj
HardwareService1.Host.proj
HardwareService1.Service.proj
HardwareService2
HardwareService2.Core.proj
HardwareService2.Host.proj
HardwareService2.Service.proj
Infrastructure
MyApp.Database.proj
MyApp.Infrastructure.proj
MyApp.ReportViewer.proj
MyApp.SettingsManager.proj
AppModules
AppModule1.proj
Common
Reports
Services
ViewModels
Views
AppModule2.proj (similar structure to other AppModules)
AppModule3.proj (similar structure to other AppModules)
Modules
ComputeEngine.proj
Footer.proj
Header.proj
CommonServices.proj
My thought was to make a Solution Folder called "Tests" and then mimic the hierarchy above, making one test project for every production code project. Within each test project, I would make folders called "UnitTests" and "IntegrationTests".
My focus is to create a consistent naming/organization scheme so that there's no ambiguity about where new tests should go and where to find existing tests. Given the large size of this project/application, I'd like to get the structure pretty solid right out of the gate so that it's not a pain later.
Thank you for your time and advice.
The naming convention that our company adopted was the use of projectName.Tests.Unit and projectName.Tests.Integration.
With your existing structure you would have something like this:
HardwareService1
HardwareService1.Core.proj
HardwareService1.Host.proj
HardwareService1.Service.proj
Tests
HardwareService1.Core.Tests.Unit
HardwareService1.Core.Tests.Integration
If you keep your tests folder along with the root folder you don't have to mimic the complete structure again as the tests are right with the respective project.
side note
By having the project name having a consistant Tests.Unit it helps assist in running unit tests in your build script as you can run tests with a wild card search like **\*tests.unit*.dll
At the end of the day, project structure can be very subjective so do what makes sense in your environment and makes sense to your team.
Related
I have a visual studio solution that contains around 18 projects. I want to write unit tests for those projects (by creating a test-project that contains unit tests against each source project).
Should I use a separate solution that contains all the test-projects? Or should I use Partitioned solution approach of Visual Studio 2008 and create a sub-solution for all test-projects?
To put unit tests in a separate solution would seem to me to create problems. Inherently, unit tests must be able to reference the types (classes) they are testing. If in a separate solution then it implies a binary association. That would seem very 'difficult'.
So, to investigate the reasons for the question, and hopefully provide some help, these are the reasons I would put my unit tests in the same solution:
Project referencing. I like to name unit tests projects as .Tests where is the name of the production assembly holding the types being tested. That way they appear next to each other (alphabetical order) in VS.
With TDD development I need rapid switching between production code and unit tests. It is about writing the code, not so much about post code testing.
I can select the solution node at the top of the solution pane and say 'run all tests' (I use Resharper(.
The build farm (TeamCity) always runs all tests on all commits. Much easier with them all in one solution.
As I write this I wonder why put them in another solution. Unit test have no meaning outside of the solution with the production code.
Perhaps you can explain why your asking the question. Can you see a problem with them being in the same solution. 18 projects does not, to me, seem like a lot. The solutions I work on have many more ... but if using Resharper (and why wouldn't you?) you will need sufficient RAM in you box.
Hope this is of some help.
There doesn't seem to be any tried and true set of best practices to guide you on how to setup your solutions, projects and the assemblies they output. Microsoft seemed to have tried back in the VS.net days, but they have since retired this content. For every method I read about I read another that claims the opposite is better, or a post that only concerns itself with "if only Microsoft would..." but really provide no solutions.
It appears there are many ways to do this that all seem to work for various groups in their situations, therefore I thought I would ask what conventions YOU use and why they work for YOU in your situation.
I hope that this will provide several good conventions for different situations, small development groups and projects to large diversely located development groups and projects.
What conventions do you use to...
name your solutions, and why?
name your projects, and why?
name your assemblies, and why?
know when to create a new project or add to an existing project, and why?
know when to split up a solution into smaller solutions, and why?
know when to break up a project into multiple projects, and why?
Just to be clear, the WHY is just as import as the HOW in these answers. There are many answers posted on the how here and other places, very few say why they use one convention over another.
That's a very broad question, but a good one. I will start with a simple structure that I use for ASP.Net web projects (MVC will look completely different).
Solution naming isn't a big deal to me. I tend to create solutions for a specific purpose, and add existing projects to the solutions. If your solution is over 15 projects (just a rough number) consider adding some of those projects as references. Most people don't need to work on more than 15 projects at a time.
Project Naming is a big deal to me.
// class library that supports the site itself and abstracts
// more complicated UI logic into a separate place
Company.ProductName.Web;
// website
Company.ProductName.Web.UI;
// main business object library for product
//
// of course, you can have as many of these as needed.
Company.ProductName;
I try to use enough folders in my projects so that all files in a folder can easily be viewed without scrolling the solution explorer.
My typical web project looks something like this. Note the different in casing to represent namespaced/compilable resources versus those that are not.
client (css, javascript)
config (private, custom config files, if any)
Content (Master Pages, ASPXs and ASCXs, broken into logical folders)
Handlers (ASHXs and such)
images
MSBuild (build scripts)
WebServices (these should ONLY be small services that are directly related to the site in question. Otherwise, break them into a separate project).
I've started using partial classes more and more to create comprehensive classes that can do many things without having the code be cluttered. For example, I recently created a web service whose single purpose is to return JSON to the client, but the logic is spread across almost a dozen partial classes to organize it better.
Hope that gets you started.
In our case we keep our project names quite identical to namespaces that we chose for particular assembly. That way it becomes easy to map location of a class file in physical folder. For example - CompanyName.BusinessLine.BusinessService or CompanyName.Framework.Security. So if a developer is looking at CompanyName.Framework.Security.Cryptography.cs, he can immediately figure out the project and open that project.
As Tim says, this is very broad. A few things to note:
A solution is usually just a collection of projects. Many solutions can include the same projects, for example. As such, it doesn't matter too much: if you don't like a solution name, you can throw it away with no refactoring at all.
Like Pradeep, I tend to name projects with the top level namespace they contain. "Deeper" namespaces end up in subdirectories, so classes within the Foo.Bar.Baz namespace might be in the Baz directory of project Foo.Bar.
I tend to split into projects across:
Elements of reusability (e.g. one assembly for a UI, one for a reusable set of model classes, one for a reusable general purpose utility classes)
Elements of deployment (e.g. one for production, one for testing, in pairs)
Elements of reference (e.g. if you have a common assembly Skeety.Common with some interfaces used by other classes, there might be a Skeety.Common.Testing assembly containing types which help you to test classes using Skeety.Common). This leads to these rules:
Production assemblies can only refer to other production assemblies
Testing assemblies can only refer to production assemblies and other production assemblies
Test assemblies (the ones containing the tests themselves) can only refer to production and testing assemblies, not to other test assemblies
No circular references are allowed, obviously
In many cases it actually doesn't matter too much how you split things up - but it does help to make the design cleaner as you work out the dependency layers (so a business logic assembly shouldn't have a reference to a UI assembly, but vice versa is fine).
Having too many project can definitely slow you down, both in terms of build times and just working out where everything should be. Having too few projects makes the design less clear. Over time you're likely to get more of a gut feeling for how things should be laid out - but I'm blowed if I'd claim to always know the best course of action :)
I am the intranet developer for the company I work for and I have been doing this for the last 5 years. My projects are divided into two solutions, the "Intranet" solution itself and the "Library" solution. The "Library" sln itself has several projects containing the DAL, BLL, etc.. The reason why I kept them in a different solution is because I thought that "maybe", one day my library sln can be used in other projects as well - you know reuse the code that I already wrote :) Well, that never happened. Now, since its so easier to have all projects in the same .sln, I am thinking to just do that. Is that a wise situation? What would you do if you were in my shoes?
In the past I've used and reused the same 'project' in multiple solutions - I really just see a solution as a 'particular' instance of a collection of projects.
For example, we might have different solutions for the same overall piece of software depending on whether we want to be doing unit testing (in their own project) and or integration testing (in a separate project), and we'd open the right solution for what it is we're about to do. That way if you're doing normal coding with unit testing you don't have to build the integration test code every time and visa-versa.
Only thing to watch out for is bringing in a project to a solution that is a dependency of lots of other projects/solutions and then "accidentally" changing the code in it without realising it's in a side project rather than your main code. Then you can start breaking loads of other projects that depend on it and not realise!
Yes, you can do it! You may still reuse your DAL and BLL, as the project settings are stored in the specific project files (csproj, vbproj, ...). Also dependencies are stored there, so no problem and good to go. I have an addin-infrastructure and for every and each addin-package, I do need the addin-host, which is included in several solution files. I never experienced any problems with this. Open up your *.sln file in a text-editor to see its contents...just links to the projects.
Simply add your library projects to your intranet sln. Keep your library solution as is.
I would personally all add them to the same solution, yes. Namely, it doesn't matter if you plan on using some of the libraries in the solution in other projects: you can still add the compiled dll to those solutions, or you have the option to add them as an exisiting project to the new solutions.
So yes, I add everything to the same solution: gui-projects, libraries, even unit tests. Maybe if your solution becomes incredibly large (20+ projects, or larger) it would be better to split them up, but I've never worked on such large projects.
I prefer to have 2 solutions. They both have identical structure (more or less) but the 2nd contains reusable infrastructure code only that isn't tied to a particular project. The thing is - your project code shouldn't contain framework-like (i.e. 'IsNumeric()' string extension method) stuff next to serious banking business logic (even if you won't reuse your 'Library'). That just makes things much more readable and maintainable.
For example:
Solution1:
ProjectName.Core
ProjectName.Infrastructure
ProjectName.Application
ProjectName.UI
ProjectName.IntegrationTests
ProjectName.UnitTests
And
Solution2:
CompanyName.Core
CompanyName.Infrastructure
CompanyName.Application
CompanyName.UI
CompanyName.Tests
And I try not to have more than 10 projects in 1 solution. Otherwise - it leads to infinite toggling between "unload project"/"reload project.
I, for my part, have separated the Solutions and the projects, leaving me with a big punch of projects and only a few solution-files. I add all the projects I need in new solutions.
The upside is that I only have the projects in my workspace which I really need and it still changes in all other solutions.
The downside is that it changes in all other solutions too, means that if you change the API of a widely used library, you'll have to check all your other solutions if incompatibilities.
I'm currently creating a paired unit test assembly for every assembly in my project, both are in the same folder.
MyProject/MyProject.csproj
MyProject.Test/MyProject.Test.csproj
Looking at open source projects, I've seen some smaller project put all tests in one assembly, and other split it out like mine. I'm dealing with a large solution so it would be pretty crazy to put all tests in one project.
I currently have msbuild logic to run tests on all *.Test.csproj files. If I had all my tests in a different folder I wouldn't need to do this.
Just wondering if there are any good arguments to do things a certain way.
Thanks
I do it the same way but I change the default namespace for each test project to match the namespace of the production project. So the tests for class X.Y.Foo are in X.Y.FooTest rather than X.Y.Test.FooTest - it means you need fewer using directives, and generally makes things simpler.
My main reason for wanting to keep the two in separate projects is to avoid either including the tests in the production library or having to ship an untested library. With the separate project structure, you can run unit tests against anything you build. It also makes it easier to look through just the production classes without having twice as many files to look at (when getting the "feel" of a library).
Finally, don't forget that if you need to access internal members when testing, there's always [InternalsVisibleTo].
I suggest making as few unit test projects as possible. The reason being is that each one you create adds on at least ten seconds of compile time. In a big project, it starts adding up.
Here's the directory structure I use:
projectName/branches/trunk/projects/code/codeproject1
projectName/branches/trunk/projects/code/codeproject2
projectName/branches/trunk/projects/code/codeproject3
projectName/branches/trunk/projects/Tests/testproject1
projectName/branches/trunk/Dependencies
projectName/prototypes
projectName/...
and within testproject1, the following directory structure:
codeproject1/
codeproject2/
codeproject2/web
codeproject2/web/mvc
codeproject3/
codeproject3/support
I do the same thing except each project is in it's own folder under the same root folder.
Something along the following:
Solution Folder
ProjectA folder
ProjectA.Test folder
ProjectB folder
ProjectB.Test folder
I always have a separate test project for each project. Part of it is simply I like the organization of it, but I've also often run into situations where I've decide to break a library out into it's own solution so that it can be reused by other solutions. In those cases, having the library project have it's own separate test project (rather than all the tests in a single project) makes it much easier to break that library out.
I've seen a lot of different takes on this subject so I figured if there's a preferred way on this.
Is there any best practices on how to setup Visual Studio Projects and Solutions in regards to multiple solutions for the same solutions?
For example:
Let's say I have a task that calls for a web app, a console application, and a shared business logic library.
I have seen this situation in a 1, 2, and 3 solutions at some time in my career. This is a simple example; however, what if number of projects grows? Is there a line when to keep it in one or break it apart?
Indeed, there are some guidelines for this sort of setup on MSDN. I wrote a short summary in my answer to a similar question on StackOverflow.
I blogged about this back in 2007. The advice still holds:
http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-structure-visual-studio.html
The bottom line is that I should be able to get your code out of source control, open it in Visual Studio, hit F5 and everything should work.
Solutions are for the developer, in a particular situation. Projects (.CSPROJ for C-Sharp) are where the real compilation takes place.
Theoretically if there are 4 different projects, there could be 24 different combinations of those projects a developer may want to combine into solutions.
If you keep everything at a project level, you won't need to worry about how a developer has arranged their .SLN files
You can have multipe solutions, and each one can reference the projects that it cares about. Extending your example, your shared business logic library may have a corresponding unit test library. These two projects can be contained in one solution. At the same time, you may have another solution that contains the three projects that you mention, but in this case the unit test library isn't included.
My solutions typically consist of:
Web Application project
'Common' folder for base & common helper classes
'Include' folder
'Styles' folder
'Scripts' folder
'Images' folder
'UserControls' folder
Web Services project
Web Framework project
Business Tier project
Business Framework project
Data Access project
I like to include all projects for a certain task, in a solution. So based on the example you mention, I would have a solution containing the three projects that belong to the solution I was asked to do. That keeps all elements to complete a task together, I find this simplifies the inclusion of other elements required to solve the task at hand.