Using the WPF Dispatcher in unit tests

Question

I\'m having trouble getting the Dispatcher to run a delegate I\'m passing to it when unit testing. Everything works fine when I\'m running the program, but, during a unit te

Answer 1

You can unit test using a dispatcher, you just need to use the DispatcherFrame. Here is an example of one of my unit tests that uses the DispatcherFrame to force the dispatcher queue to execute.

[TestMethod]
public void DomainCollection_AddDomainObjectFromWorkerThread()
{
 Dispatcher dispatcher = Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher;
 DispatcherFrame frame = new DispatcherFrame();
 IDomainCollectionMetaData domainCollectionMetaData = this.GenerateIDomainCollectionMetaData();
 IDomainObject parentDomainObject = MockRepository.GenerateMock();
 DomainCollection sut = new DomainCollection(dispatcher, domainCollectionMetaData, parentDomainObject);

 IDomainObject domainObject = MockRepository.GenerateMock();

 sut.SetAsLoaded();
 bool raisedCollectionChanged = false;
 sut.ObservableCollection.CollectionChanged += delegate(object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
 {
  raisedCollectionChanged = true;
  Assert.IsTrue(e.Action == NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add, "The action was not add.");
  Assert.IsTrue(e.NewStartingIndex == 0, "NewStartingIndex was not 0.");
  Assert.IsTrue(e.NewItems[0] == domainObject, "NewItems not include added domain object.");
  Assert.IsTrue(e.OldItems == null, "OldItems was not null.");
  Assert.IsTrue(e.OldStartingIndex == -1, "OldStartingIndex was not -1.");
  frame.Continue = false;
 };

 WorkerDelegate worker = new WorkerDelegate(delegate(DomainCollection domainCollection)
  {
   domainCollection.Add(domainObject);
  });
 IAsyncResult ar = worker.BeginInvoke(sut, null, null);
 worker.EndInvoke(ar);
 Dispatcher.PushFrame(frame);
 Assert.IsTrue(raisedCollectionChanged, "CollectionChanged event not raised.");
}

I found out about it here.