How to pass in a mocked HttpClient in a .NET test?

Question

I have a service which uses Microsoft.Net.Http to retrieve some Json data. Great!

Of course, I don\'t want my unit test hitting the actual

Answer 1

You can replace the core HttpMessageHandler with a fake one. Something that looks like this...

public class FakeResponseHandler : DelegatingHandler
    {
        private readonly Dictionary<Uri, HttpResponseMessage> _FakeResponses = new Dictionary<Uri, HttpResponseMessage>(); 

        public void AddFakeResponse(Uri uri, HttpResponseMessage responseMessage)
        {
                _FakeResponses.Add(uri,responseMessage);
        }

        protected async override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken)
        {
            if (_FakeResponses.ContainsKey(request.RequestUri))
            {
                return _FakeResponses[request.RequestUri];
            }
            else
            {
                return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound) { RequestMessage = request};
            }

        }
    }

and then you can create a client that will use the fake handler.

var fakeResponseHandler = new FakeResponseHandler();
fakeResponseHandler.AddFakeResponse(new Uri("http://example.org/test"), new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK));

var httpClient = new HttpClient(fakeResponseHandler);

var response1 = await httpClient.GetAsync("http://example.org/notthere");
var response2 = await httpClient.GetAsync("http://example.org/test");

Assert.Equal(response1.StatusCode,HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
Assert.Equal(response2.StatusCode, HttpStatusCode.OK);

Answer 2

You might take a look at Microsoft Fakes, especially at the Shims-section. With them, you're able to modify the behaviours of your HttpClient itself. Prerequisite is, that you're using VS Premium or Ultimate.

Answer 3

I know that this is an old question but I stumbled with it during a search on this topic and found a very nice solution to make testing HttpClient easier.

It is available via nuget:

https://github.com/richardszalay/mockhttp

PM> Install-Package RichardSzalay.MockHttp

Here is a quick look on the usage:

var mockHttp = new MockHttpMessageHandler();

// Setup a respond for the user api (including a wildcard in the URL)
mockHttp.When("http://localost/api/user/*")
        .Respond("application/json", "{'name' : 'Test McGee'}"); // Respond with JSON

// Inject the handler or client into your application code
var client = new HttpClient(mockHttp);

var response = await client.GetAsync("http://localost/api/user/1234");
// or without await: var response = client.GetAsync("http://localost/api/user/1234").Result;

var json = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();

// No network connection required
Console.Write(json); // {'name' : 'Test McGee'}

More info on the github project page. Hope this can be useful.

Answer 4

I would just make a small change to @Darrel Miller's answer, which is using Task.FromResult to avoid the warning about an async method expecting an await operator.

public class FakeResponseHandler : DelegatingHandler
{
    private readonly Dictionary<Uri, HttpResponseMessage> _FakeResponses = new Dictionary<Uri, HttpResponseMessage>();

    public void AddFakeResponse(Uri uri, HttpResponseMessage responseMessage)
    {
        _FakeResponses.Add(uri, responseMessage);
    }

    protected override Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, System.Threading.CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        if (_FakeResponses.ContainsKey(request.RequestUri))
        {
            return Task.FromResult(_FakeResponses[request.RequestUri]);
        }
        else
        {
            return Task.FromResult(new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound) { RequestMessage = request });
        }
    }
}