Is there any framework for .NET to populate test data?

Question

I am use c# and for unit testing and integration testing usually I need to populate fields automatically based on attributes.

Lets say we will test if we can write and get back user data to database.

I create a user object populate fields write user to database
Read user object from database
Check fields if what I write is same as what I read

Is there any framework to populate user with test data automatically and check if two object are have the same values?

Sample code may like this

User user = new User();
AutoPopulator.Populate(user);
user.Save();

score 92 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 21 '22 at 14:42

92

You might find it relevant. Here is a list of few other frameworks as of today:

Well-known and respected:

NBuilder
AutoFixture
AutoPoco(Discontinued / Deprecated)
Bogus - C# port of faker.js with locale support. Used by Elasticsearch (NEST).

Little-known:

Unfamiliar:

edited Jan 21 '22 at 14:42

misanthrop

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answered Jul 05 '12 at 06:53

Igor Toporet

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I could not make AutoPoco work for me but AutoFixture appears to be quite useful. – Maxim Eliseev Mar 19 '14 at 16:40
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Bogus seems to be updated most actively and I quite like its capabilities. Thanks for listing these! – Anton Georgiev Jun 22 '15 at 14:15
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Bogus worked for me, it works for dotnet core on linux as well which is what I wanted – Sumit Maingi May 26 '17 at 05:29

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 12 '19 at 17:18

18

Take a look at NBuilder. It lets you build test objects with random data, incrementing values, and anything you can probably think of. All through a nice fluent interface.

edited Jan 12 '19 at 17:18

JJS

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answered Oct 25 '09 at 21:25

Michael Baldry

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 23 '09 at 12:32

Yes there is. I found this when watching session #3 of the Summer of NHibernate series by Stephen Bohlen.

His company, Microdesk, has developed a utility that will allow you to save the state of a database on test fixture construction, set the state of the database at the start of every test, and recover the original state of the database on test fixture deconstruction.

Download the utility here: Microdesk.Utility.UnitTest

For a tutorial on how to use it, watch the Summer of NHibernate session #3 video.

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 25 '09 at 21:12

Fluent NHibernate has a feature which gives you everything on your wish-list, except the auto-population part:

Link: http://wiki.fluentnhibernate.org/Persistence_specification_testing

However, given C# with code contracts, it wouldn't be to hard to auto-magically create valid objects yourself using reflection.

Is there any framework for .NET to populate test data?

4 Answers4

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