Best way to test exceptions with Assert to ensure they will be thrown

Question

Do you think that this is a good way for testing exceptions? Any suggestions?

Exception exception = null;
try{
    //I m sure that an exeption will happen he         


        

Answer 1

As of v 2.5, NUnit has the following method-level Asserts for testing exceptions:

Assert.Throws, which will test for an exact exception type:

Assert.Throws<NullReferenceException>(() => someNullObject.ToString());

And Assert.Catch, which will test for an exception of a given type, or an exception type derived from this type:

Assert.Catch<Exception>(() => someNullObject.ToString());

As an aside, when debugging unit tests which throw exceptions, you may want to prevent VS from breaking on the exception.

Edit

Just to give an example of Matthew's comment below, the return of the generic Assert.Throws and Assert.Catch is the exception with the type of the exception, which you can then examine for further inspection:

// The type of ex is that of the generic type parameter (SqlException)
var ex = Assert.Throws<SqlException>(() => MethodWhichDeadlocks());
Assert.AreEqual(1205, ex.Number);

Answer 2

Mark the test with the ExpectedExceptionAttribute (this is the term in NUnit or MSTest; users of other unit testing frameworks may need to translate).

Answer 3

Suggest using NUnit's clean delegate syntax.

Example for testing ArgumentNullExeption:

[Test]
[TestCase(null)]
public void FooCalculation_InvalidInput_ShouldThrowArgumentNullExeption(string text)
{
    var foo = new Foo();
    Assert.That(() => foo.Calculate(text), Throws.ArgumentNullExeption);

    //Or:
    Assert.That(() => foo.Calculate(text), Throws.Exception.TypeOf<ArgumentNullExeption>);
}

Answer 4

With most .net unit testing frameworks you can put an [ExpectedException] attribute on the test method. However this can't tell you that the exception happened at the point you expected it to. That's where xunit.net can help.

With xunit you have Assert.Throws, so you can do things like this:

    [Fact]
    public void CantDecrementBasketLineQuantityBelowZero()
    {
        var o = new Basket();
        var p = new Product {Id = 1, NetPrice = 23.45m};
        o.AddProduct(p, 1);
        Assert.Throws<BusinessException>(() => o.SetProductQuantity(p, -3));
    }

[Fact] is the xunit equivalent of [TestMethod]

Answer 5

I have a couple of different patterns that I use. I use the ExpectedException attribute most of the time when an exception is expected. This suffices for most cases, however, there are some cases when this is not sufficient. The exception may not be catchable - since it's thrown by a method that is invoked by reflection - or perhaps I just want to check that other conditions hold, say a transaction is rolled back or some value has still been set. In these cases I wrap it in a try/catch block that expects the exact exception, does an Assert.Fail if the code succeeds and also catches generic exceptions to make sure that a different exception is not thrown.

First case:

[TestMethod]
[ExpectedException(typeof(ArgumentNullException))]
public void MethodTest()
{
     var obj = new ClassRequiringNonNullParameter( null );
}

Second case:

[TestMethod]
public void MethodTest()
{
    try
    {
        var obj = new ClassRequiringNonNullParameter( null );
        Assert.Fail("An exception should have been thrown");
    }
    catch (ArgumentNullException ae)
    {
        Assert.AreEqual( "Parameter cannot be null or empty.", ae.Message );
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        Assert.Fail(
             string.Format( "Unexpected exception of type {0} caught: {1}",
                            e.GetType(), e.Message )
        );
    }
}

Answer 6

Unfortunately MSTest STILL only really has the ExpectedException attribute (just shows how much MS cares about MSTest) which IMO is pretty awful because it breaks the Arrange/Act/Assert pattern and it doesnt allow you to specify exactly which line of code you expect the exception to occur on.

When I'm using (/forced by a client) to use MSTest I always use this helper class:

public static class AssertException
{
    public static void Throws<TException>(Action action) where TException : Exception
    {
        try
        {
            action();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(ex.GetType() == typeof(TException), "Expected exception of type " + typeof(TException) + " but type of " + ex.GetType() + " was thrown instead.");
            return;
        }
        Assert.Fail("Expected exception of type " + typeof(TException) + " but no exception was thrown.");
    }

    public static void Throws<TException>(Action action, string expectedMessage) where TException : Exception
    {
        try
        {
            action();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(ex.GetType() == typeof(TException), "Expected exception of type " + typeof(TException) + " but type of " + ex.GetType() + " was thrown instead.");
            Assert.AreEqual(expectedMessage, ex.Message, "Expected exception with a message of '" + expectedMessage + "' but exception with message of '" + ex.Message + "' was thrown instead.");
            return;
        }
        Assert.Fail("Expected exception of type " + typeof(TException) + " but no exception was thrown.");
    }
}

Example of usage:

AssertException.Throws<ArgumentNullException>(() => classUnderTest.GetCustomer(null));