xUnit.net: Extensions Config v3.3.0

I recently made several updates to the xunit.extensions.config library, which allows you to configure theory data from your app.config file. Here are the links to the source and the NuGet package:

• GitHub - Source and Tests
• NuGet - xunit.extensions.config

New Features

• Named Parameter Support

You no longer need to configure your data by parameter index. You can now name your data for each parameter, making the configuration much easier to read and understand.

• AppSettings Support

You can now use the standard AppSettings section of the App.config to configure your data. If no settings are found, then the framework will fallback to trying to use the standard config section.

• Default Namespace Option

You can now provide a default namespace for your tests. This reduced the amount of redundant text in your config file, and makes test names much more concise and easy to read.

• Extensible Data Provider

Don't want to use the existing data providers? Would you rather use a database? Now you can! Just add an AppSettings key for "TestData.ServiceFactory" that provides the fully qualified name of a static method that returns an IConfigTestDataService, and the framework will try to use that to load configuration data.

Override Configuration via Command Line

In my previous blog posts I have talked about creating complex config objects from your app.config file, as well as how to have cascading configuration settings from multiple files. Now I want to build on that concept by taking in configuration from command line in a generic fashion that will override your other cascading settings.

Configuration Object

public class TestConfig

{

    public string Hello { get; set; }

    public string Goodnight { get; set; }

}

App.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration>

  <appSettings>

    <add key="TestConfig.Hello" value="World" />

    <add key="TestConfig.Goodnight" value="Moon" />

  </appSettings>

</configuration>

Cascading AppSettings from Multiple Config Files

In my previous blog post I talked about creating complex configuration objects from AppSettings. I really like this practice, but it can cause your config files to grow pretty large. One solution is to break your app.config into multiple files using the SectionInformation.ConfigSource property.

This also has the added side effect of allowing you to include defaults and overrides by having those settings cascade. I have created an extension method to combine a series of NameValueCollections, such as an AppSettings section. You can also grab this code from the GitHub project.

Combine Extension

public static NameValueCollection Combine(

    this NameValueCollection collection, 

    params NameValueCollection[] collections)

{

    var result = new NameValueCollection { collection };

    foreach (var subCollection in collections)

        foreach (var key in subCollection.AllKeys)

        {

            if (result.AllKeys.Contains(key))

                continue;

            var value = subCollection[key];

            result.Add(key, value);

        }

    return result;

}

Create Config Objects from AppSettings

Providing configuration settings is a vital task that all applications need. Unfortunately dealing with ConfigurationSections and IConfigurationSectionHandlers can be annoying.

That is why I created a simple little extension method to create complex objects from your app settings. The extension works with a NameValueCollection, and can create primitive types, complex objects, collections, dictionaries, and even recursive properties.

• NameValueCollectionExtensions.cs
• NameValueCollectionExtensionsTests.cs

App.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration>

  <appSettings>

    <add key="TestConfig.Int" value="1" />

    <add key="TestConfig.String" value="Hello" />

    <add key="TestConfig.DateTime" value="1/2/2015" />

    <add key="TestConfig.TimeSpan" value="00:01:00" />

    <add key="TestConfig.Enum" value="Moon" />

    <add key="TestConfig.NullableIntA" value="2" />

    <add key="TestConfig.NullableIntB" value="" />

  </appSettings>

</configuration>

Test

[Fact]

public void CreateSimpleObject()

{

    var result = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.CreateObject<TestConfig>();

    Assert.NotNull(result);

    Assert.Equal(1, result.Int);

    Assert.Equal(42, result.IntWithDefault);

    Assert.Equal("Hello", result.String);

    Assert.Equal(new DateTime(2015, 1, 2), result.DateTime);

    Assert.Equal(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1), result.TimeSpan);

    Assert.Equal(TestEnum.Moon, result.Enum);

    Assert.Equal(2, result.NullableIntA);

    Assert.Null(result.NullableIntB);

}

Enjoy,
Tom

Split your App.config into Multiple Files

What do you do when any file in your project becomes too big? You break it apart into multiple files!

Did you know that you can split your .NET configuration files into multiple files as well? Here is how...

App.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration>

  <configSections>

    <section name="customSection" 

    type="ConfigSectionDemo.CustomConfigurationSection, ConfigSectionDemo" />

  </configSections>

  <appSettings configSource="AppSettings.config" />

  <customSection configSource="CustomSection.config" />

  <startup>

    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />

  </startup>

</configuration>

AppSettings.config

<appSettings>

  <add key="Hello" value="World"/>

</appSettings>

CustomSection.config

<customSection goodnight="Moon">

</customSection>