How to order methods of execution using Visual Studio to do integration testing?

Question

I have 2 questions in regard doing integration testing using VS 2010

First, I'm really in need of finding a way to execute these testing methods in the order I want them to. Note: I know in Unit Testing, methods should run standalone from anything else, but these are integration tests which I do depend on the order of which method runs first.

On the same note, is there a way to keep a local variable through running the tests? For example like the following code which right now fails.

[TestClass]
public class UnitTest1
{
    int i = 0;
    [TestMethod]
    public void TestMethod1()
    {
        i = 5;
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void TestMethod2()
    {
        Assert.AreEqual(5, i);
    }
}

So is there a way to do any of these?

Answer 1

To execute tests in a specific order I followed the next steps:

In a test project with test1, test2 and test3

1 Right click on the project 'Add'->'new test..."
2 Select 'Ordered Test'
3 Double click in the file that appears "OrderedTest1.orderedtest"

4 Build the project if was not build previously
5 From the list of available test select the test you want and order them

From that point on there appears a new test in the test list editor

It is an extra test that runs the enclosed tests in the correct order, but if you run all the test in the project carelessly the tests included in the ordered list will be executed twice so you need to somehow manage lists or test categories to avoid that.
I tried disabling the individual tests but that also disables the ordered test, I don't know a better way to do so.

Answer 2

It is best practice to use functions to set up the tests and to clean them up, by using the attributes [TestInitialize] and [TestCleanUp] or [ClassInitialize] and [ClassCleanup].
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.visualstudio.testtools.unittesting(v=VS.100).aspx

The next code is an example of a similar thing to what you want:

[TestClass]
public class UnitTest1
{
    int i=0;

    [TestInitialize]
    public void Setup()
    {
        i = 5;
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void TestMethod1()
    {
        Assert.AreEqual(5, i);
    }
}

The function SetUp will be called before executing each test. If you need to pass the value from one test to the other you might want to consider using a static variable which is not recommended due to the indeterministic order of execution.

Usually there is a way to avoid needing a specific order by using the setup/cleanup technique, but it is true that this might not be true for very complex integration tests.
If there is no possible way to avoid having them to reorder you can consider merging them in one, breaking again the best practice of having only one assert per test, but if they are so much dependent one from the other it might be even better this way, as in this case one test failing might compromise the result of the others.

EDIT: May be using ordered tests answers question 1, and using static variables question 2: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182631.aspx