Can one access TestContext in an AssemblyCleanup method?

Question

In Microsoft's UnitTesting namespace (Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting) there are AssemblyInitialize and AssemblyCleanup attributes you can apply to static methods and they will be called before and after all tests respectively.

[AssemblyInitialize]
static public void AssemblyInitialize(TestContext testCtx)
{
    // allocate resources
}

[AssemblyCleanup]
static public void AssemblyCleanup()
{
    // free resources
}

My question: is it possible and safe to access the TestContext within AssemblyCleanup()? If not, is storing resource references as static members a reasonable alternative or could that cause problems as well?

Additionally/optionally: what is the reasoning behind not passing a reference to the TestContext to clean-up methods?

Answer 1

You can't pass any paramaters to AssemblyCleanup method. Here's the error if you try to do so:

Result Message: Method SomeNamespace.TestDatabaseInitializer.AssemblyCleanup has wrong signature. The method must be static, public, does not return a value and should not take any parameter.

Answer 2

I'm accessing a static property on the same class and it seems to be working fine. I'll update this answer if I encounter any problems. I am not, however, accessing the TestContext so I'm curious if that would work too.