How to unit-test an MVC controller action which depends on authentication in c#?

Question

I\'d like to write (in c#) a unit-test for an MVC controller action which might return one view or the other, depending on whether the request is authenticated. How can this

Answer 1

Using mocking and dependency injection. The following assumes that you're checking that it is authenticated and then accessing the user object to get the user's id. Uses RhinoMocks.

// mock context variables
var username = "user";
var httpContext = MockRepository.GenerateMock();
var request = MockRepository.GenerateMock();
var identity = MockRepository.GenerateMock();
var principal = MockRepository.GenerateMock();

httpContext.Expect( c => c.Request ).Return( request ).Repeat.AtLeastOnce();
request.Expect( r => r.IsAuthenticated ).Return( true ).Repeat.AtLeastOnce();
httpContext.Expect( c => c.User ).Return( principal ).Repeat.AtLeastOnce();
principal.Expect( p => p.Identity ).Return( identity ).Repeat.AtLeastOnce();
identity.Expect( i => i.Name ).Return( username ).Repeat.AtLeastOnce();

var controller = new MyController();
// inject context
controller.ControllerContext = new ControllerContext( httpContext,
                                                      new RouteData(),
                                                      controller );

var result = controller.MyAction() as ViewResult;

Assert.IsNotNull( result );

// verify that expectations were met
identity.VerifyAllExpectations();
principal.VerifyAllExpectations();
request.VerifyAllExpectations();
httpContext.VerifyAllExpectations();