Understanding the MSTest TestContext

Question

Using MSTest, I needed to obtain the name of the current test from within the [TestInitialize] method. You can get this from the TestContext.TestName

Answer 1

If you want to pass your objects created in method [ClassInitialize] (or[AssemblyInitialize]) to the cleanup methods and your tests, you must keep its initialization context in a separate static variable, aside from the regular TestContext. Only this way can you retrieve it later in your code.

public TestContext TestContext { get; set; } // regular test context
private static TestContext ClassTestContext { get; set; } // global class test context

[ClassInitialize]
public static void ClassInit(TestContext context)
{
        ClassTestContext = context;
        context.Properties["myobj"] = ;
}

[ClassCleanup]
public static void ClassCleanup()
{
    object myobj = (object)ClassTestContext.Properties["myobj"];
}

[TestMethod]
public void Test()
{
    string testname = (string)TestContext.Properties["TestName"] // object from regular context
    object myobj = (object)ClassTestContext.Properties["myobj"]; // object from global class context
}

MSTest framework does not preserve the context objects passed to [ClassInitialize]/[AssemblyInitialize] method, so after the return they will be lost forever unless you explicitly save them.