Is there a better way to check if a project is NUnit or MSTest based?

Question

I want to check if a c# project is NUnit or MSTest based. Currently, I read csproj's file and look for a specific string like below.

const string MSTEST_ELEMENT = "<TestProjectType>UnitTest</TestProjectType>";
const string NUNIT_ELEMENT = @"<Reference Include=""nunit.framework"">";

var file = File.ReadAllText("C:\myfile.csproj");

if (file.Contains(NUNIT_ELEMENT))
{
    result = TestProjectType.NUnit;
} 
else if (file.Contains(MSTEST_ELEMENT))
{
    result = TestProjectType.MSTest;
}

It works as I expected but looking for a specific text in a file is ugly for me. Is there a better way to do this?

Why can't you read XML as XML? Also what if both are present? — Alexei Levenkov, Aug 07 '14 at 05:05
Because reading into XML is slower than reading as a plain text. — Anonymous, Aug 07 '14 at 05:12
@Anonymous reading the XML is reliable, searching for a string not. — Peter, Aug 07 '14 at 15:32
@peer Could you give me an example where reading file's content and searching for a string value is not reliable? — Anonymous, Aug 08 '14 at 03:34
Related post - [How can I check if project is a Test Project? (NUnit, MSTest, xUnit)](https://stackoverflow.com/q/20152371/465053) — RBT, Jun 29 '21 at 03:45

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 07 '14 at 05:57

1

Check the solution for dll reference "NUnit.framework.dll" . For NUnit, it is neccesary to provide reference of that dll.

answered Aug 07 '14 at 05:57

sandip

31
1

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 07 '14 at 08:19

You could use a reflection-based approach - load the DLL from the test project, get all of the public types in it, and check for [TestClass] attributes to indicate if it's MSTest, etc.

This sample (works but not really tested) gives an example. You could make it better by referencing the test attribute types in whatever runs this code so you could do proper type comparisons instead of strings.

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var path =  @"Path\To\Your\Test\Dll";
            //load assembly:
            var assembly = Assembly.LoadFile(path);
            //get all public types:
            var types = assembly.GetExportedTypes();
            foreach (var t in types)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(t.Name);
                //check for [TestClass] attribute:
                var attributes = t.GetCustomAttributes();
                foreach (var attr in attributes)
                {
                    var typeName = attr.TypeId.ToString();
                    Console.WriteLine(attr.TypeId);
                    if (typeName== "Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting.TestClassAttribute")
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("It's MSTest");
                    }
                    else if (typeName == "Nunit.Tests.TestFixture") //not sure if that's the right type id :)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("It's NUnit");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("I Have no idea what it is");
                    }
                }
            }
            Console.ReadLine();

        }
    }

Is there a better way to check if a project is NUnit or MSTest based?

2 Answers2