KE
  • dotNet Web 3.0
  • Engineering Management
    • Process Planning (SDLC)
      • Software development process
      • Basics of SDLC models
      • Scrum
      • Kanban
      • Scrum vs Kanban: applicability
      • Scrumban
    • Estimation
      • Scope Concept
      • Estimates, Targets, and Commitments
      • Overestimate vs Underestimate
      • Decomposition and Recomposition
      • Analogy-based estimations
      • Estimating in Agile
  • Requirements
    • Software Requirements Engineering
      • Requirement definition
      • Levels of Requirements
      • Most common requirements risks
      • Characteristics of Excellent Requirements
      • Benefits from a High-Quality Requirements Process
      • Root Causes of Project Success and Failure
  • Design
    • OOD
      • Abstraction
      • Encapsulation
      • Inheritance vs Aggregation
      • Modularity
      • Polymorphism
      • Abstraction Qualities (cohesion, coupling, etc)
      • Types vs. Classes
      • Separation of concerns principle
      • SOLID
      • Design Patterns
        • Structural patterns
        • Creational patterns
        • Behavioral patterns
      • Most often used design patterns
      • Software Architecture Patterns (structure, pros & cons)
      • Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern
      • Domain-Driven Design patterns
      • Anti-patterns
    • DB Design
      • Relational Terminology: Entities
      • Relational terminology: Attributes
      • Relational terminology: Records (Tuples)
      • Relationships (One-to-One, One-to-Many)
      • Understanding ER notation
      • Understanding normalization concept
      • Data Integrity
    • Modeling
      • UML: Basic Diagram Types
      • UML: Use Case Diagram (Essentials)
      • UML: Class Diagram (Essentials)
      • Entity Relationship Diagrams
      • Data Flow Diagrams
    • Security
      • Information security concepts
      • Access Control Lists (ACLs)
      • Access Control Models
      • .NET Cryptography Model
      • ASP.NET Identity
      • OWASP Top 10
      • Cross-Site Request Forgery (XSRF)
      • Protecting against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)
      • Protecting against buffer overrun attacks
      • Protecting against SQL-injection attacks
      • CSRF/XSRF protection
    • Algorithms
      • Algorithms complexity (understanding, big O notation, complexity of common algorithms)
      • Array sorting methods (bubble sort, quick sort, merge sort)
      • Tree structure (construction, traversal)
      • Binary search algorithm
      • Hash table (creating, collisions)
      • Stack, queue, linked list (construction, understanding, usage)
  • Construction Core
    • Programming language
      • Declare namespaces, classes, interfaces, static and instance class members
      • Types casting
      • Value and reference types. Class vs Struct usage.
      • Properties and automatic properties
      • Structured Exception Handling, Exception filters
      • Collections and Generics
      • Dictionaries. Comparison of Dictionaries
      • Building enumerable types
      • Building cloneable objects
      • Building comparable types
      • Nullable types
      • Delegates, events and lambdas
      • Indexers and operator overloading
      • Anonymous types
      • Extension methods. Practices.
      • Custom Type Conversions (implicit/explicit keywords)
      • Strings and StringBuilder. String concatenation practices. String Interpolation
      • Serialization
      • System.IO namespace
      • LINQ to Objects
      • General Coding conventions for C#
      • Static Using Statement
      • Type Reflection
      • Custom attributes
      • Dispose and Finalizable patterns
      • Garbage collection
      • .Net Diagnostics
      • Implementing logging
      • Exception handling guidelines
      • Regular Expressions
      • Span<T> struct
      • C# - What's new?
      • .NET Standard overview
    • Concurrency
      • Understand differences between Concurrency vs Multi-threading vs Asynchronous
      • Concurrency: An Overview
      • Async basics
      • Task Parallelism
      • Basic Synchronization in C#
      • Deadlock problem
      • QueueBackgroundWorkItem or IHostedService for .NET Core
      • How to run Background Tasks in ASP.NET
    • Refactoring
      • Refactoring Concept (what/when/why)
      • Smells Catalog and possible re-factorings
      • Moving Features Between Objects (basic)
      • Organizing Data (basic)
      • Composing Methods (basic)
      • Simplifying Conditional Expressions (basic)
      • Making Method Calls Simpler
      • Dealing with Generalization
    • Product deploying, software installation
      • Create, configure, and publish a web package (.NET Web Profile)
      • Publishing Web Services
      • Manage packages by using NuGet, NPM and Bower
    • Networking
      • Understanding networks: layers and protocols
      • Basic understanding of TCP/IP model and protocols
      • Defining internet, intranet and VPN
      • Basics of Firewalls and DMZ
      • Application layer protocols basics (HTTP, FTP, Telnet)
      • Understanding HTTP and WWW
      • Basic troubleshooting tools (ICMP, ping, traceroute)
      • Client/Server model
      • Sockets, IP and port addressing
      • Using proxy server
      • File transfer services: FTP, TFTP
      • Name resolution services: DNS, whois
      • Remote access services: Telnet, SSH, rdesktop, VNC
      • The basic difference between HTTP and HTTPS protocols
  • Construction Web
    • Web server applications
      • ASP.NET Core
        • Application startup
        • Middleware
        • Working with Static Files
        • Routing
        • Error Handling
        • Globalization and localization
        • Configuration
        • Logging
        • File Providers
        • Dependency Injection
        • Working with Multiple Environments
        • Hosting
        • Managing Application State
        • Request Features
      • ASP.NET Core MVC
        • MVC basics (Model, View, Controller, DI)
        • Model binding and validation
        • View (Razor compilation, Layout, Tag Helpers, Partial Views, DI, View components)
        • Controllers (Route to actions, File uploads)
      • Security and Identity (concepts understanding)
        • Authentication
        • Using identity
        • Authorization with roles
      • Bundle and Minify assets
      • Develop ASP.NET Core MVC apps
      • Advanced topics for ASP.NET Core MVC
        • Application model
        • Filters
        • Areas
        • Application Parts
        • Custom Model Building
        • IActionConstraint
      • Host and deploy ASP.NET Core
      • Migrate from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core
      • Troubleshoot ASP.NET Core projects
      • Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN)
      • Web server implementations in ASP.NET Core
    • Web Services
      • REST
      • ASP.NET Web API
        • Routing
        • Configuration
        • Basic error handling
      • Web API-based services
      • Web API Security
      • Token based security
      • SingalR
      • Serialization Frameworks
      • Implement caching
      • gRPC on ASP.NET Core
      • API versioning
      • API documentation
    • Microservices and Cloud
      • Microservices architecture
      • Dockerize a .NET Core application
      • Development workflow for Docker apps
    • JavaScript, HTML, CSS
      • JavaScript: Variables
      • JavaScript: Data types and types conversion
      • JavaScript: Operators
      • JavaScript: Control and Loop constructions
      • JavaScript: Functions, Execution Context and Variables scopes
      • JavaScript: Arrays
      • JavaScript: JS in WebBrowser and basic DOM manipulations
      • HTML: Basic elements
      • CSS: Simple Style rules
      • CSS: selectors
      • Box model
      • HTML: Standards and Browser compatibility
      • HTML: Page Layouts with divs
      • HTML: Frames
      • CSS: Elements positioning and layering
      • CSS: Tables properties
      • CSS: Flexbox
      • Different storage
      • JavaScript: Event Understanding (propagation, capturing, attach/detach)
      • JavaScript: Closure
      • AJAX/JSON
      • Ecma script 6: OOP
      • Promise
      • Strict mode of javascript
    • JavaScript Frameworks
      • Selecting elements
      • Operating on collection
      • Manipulating with elements, working with properties, attributes and data
      • Events
      • animation and effects
      • utilities and Ajax
      • SPA (SINGLE PAGE APPLICATIONS)
      • EcmaScript 6
      • UI frameworks basics:
      • NPM basics:
      • React basics
  • Construction DB
    • SQL
      • Tables, relationships, keys, constraints understanding
      • DDL, DML, DCL understanding
      • SQL data types
      • SQL operators, functions
      • Data manipulation (insert, update, delete)
      • Retrieving data (simple select statement)
      • Joins understanding
      • Creating, modifying, removing database objects
      • Aggregations (ORDER BY, GROUP BY, HAVING, SUM, COUNT, AVG, etc)
      • Combining the results of multiple queries (UNION, EXCEPT, INTERSECT, MINUS, subqueries)
      • Sessions, transactions, locks
      • Isolation levels understanding
      • Implementing stored procedures, user-defined functions, triggers
      • Cursors
    • Data Access Layer
      • Manage connection strings and objects
      • Working with data providers
      • Connect to a data source by using a generic data access interface
      • Handle and diagnose database connection exceptions
      • Manage exceptions when selecting, modifying data
      • Build command objects and query data from data sources
      • Retrieve data source by using the DataReader
      • Manage data by using the DataAdapter and TableAdapter
      • Updating data
      • Entity Framework
        • Query data sources by using EF
        • Code First to existing DB
        • Entity Data Modeling Fundamentals
        • Querying Data
        • Data modification
  • Verification
    • Code Quality
      • MSDN: Guidelines for Names
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Coding Standards
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Code Review Process
      • SDO Best Practices Catalog - Automatic Code Inspection
      • Automated coding standards enforcement (StyleCop, Resharper)
      • Code Reviews and Toolset
      • Use Work Items (TODO, BUG etc.)
      • Preemptive Error Detection
      • Desirable characteristics of a design (minimal complexity, ease of maintenance, minimal connectednes
      • Creating high quality classes
      • Creating high quality methods
      • Guidelines for initializing variables
      • Exceptions and error handling techniques
      • Best practices of working with data types
      • Code commenting practices
    • Automated Testing (principles, patterns, and practices)
      • Software testing basic concepts
      • Software testing concept
      • Test Case
      • Test Suite
      • Test Plan
      • Testing Levels
      • Naming standards for unit tests
      • Types of test doubles (Stub, Mock, Spy, Fake, Dummy)
      • Basic coverage criteria
      • Testing concepts (Unit vs Functional vs Integration)
      • Goals of Unit Testing, What Makes a Test Valuable?
      • Styles of Unit Testing (Output / State / Collaboration)
      • Good unit test properties
      • F.I.R.S.T Principles of unit testing
      • Test Pyramid concept
      • Testing Pyramid, Agile Testing Pyramid, Diamond
      • Breaking the dependency, Interaction testing
      • Strategies for isolating the database in tests
      • Test smells and how to avoid
      • Test Organization patterns
      • Fixture setup patterns
      • Test double patterns
      • Feature-driven development (FDD)
      • Behavior-driven development (BDD)
      • Test-driven development (TDD)
      • Acceptance testing, Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
      • Continuous testing
    • Automated Testing (Frameworks, Tools, Libraries)
      • .NET unit test frameworks overview
      • .NET Mocking Frameworks, a comparison
      • xUnit
        • Primary test framework attributes
        • Asserts
        • Exception Handling in Unit Tests
        • Skipping Tests
        • Initialization and Cleanup (Assembly, Class, Test)
        • Data-driven Tests
      • NSubstitute
        • Mocking Method Calls (Using Mock Object, Return Values, Argument Matching)
        • Behavior Verification (Method Was/Not Called, a Specific Number of Times, Getter/Setter Was Called)
        • Throwing exceptions
        • Raising Events from Mock Objects
        • Returning Different Results for Sequential Calls
      • AutoFixture
      • EF Core InMemory test
      • Integration tests in ASP.NET Core
      • Isolating database data in integration tests
      • Test ASP.NET Core MVC apps
  • Configuration Management
    • Product builds and Continuous Integration
      • Automated build concept
      • Dotnet cli
      • CI/CD Basic concepts
    • Managing Versions
      • Fundamental concepts: revisions, working copy, repository, branch, baseline, trunk
      • Versioning Models
      • Distributed Version Control basics
      • Distributed systems advantages and weak sides
      • VCS Management life-cycle on (one of) major tools (clone, commit, update, revert, merge, resolve, et
      • Branching/Merging strategies
      • Blaming (annotate)
      • Revision graph/log actions (Git)
      • Integrating with Issue Tracking Systems
      • Source control Best Practices
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On this page
  • Creating a substitute
  • Setting a return value
  • Argument matchers
  • Ignoring arguments
  • Conditionally matching an argument
  • Matching a specific argument
  • Matching out and ref args
  1. Verification
  2. Automated Testing (Frameworks, Tools, Libraries)
  3. NSubstitute

Mocking Method Calls (Using Mock Object, Return Values, Argument Matching)

Creating a substitute

The basic syntax for creating a substitute is:

var substitute = Substitute.For<ISomeInterface>();

This is how you’ll normally create substitutes for types. Generally this type will be an interface, but you can also substitute classes in cases of emergency.

Substituting for classes

var someClass = Substitute.For<SomeClassWithCtorArgs>(5, "hello world");

Substituting for multiple interfaces

There are times when you want to substitute for multiple types. The best example of this is when you have code that works with a type, then checks whether it implements IDisposable and disposes of it if it doesn’t.

var command = Substitute.For<ICommand, IDisposable>();
var runner = new CommandRunner(command);

runner.RunCommand();

command.Received().Execute();
((IDisposable)command).Received().Dispose();

Your substitute can implement several types this way, but remember you can only implement a maximum of one class. You can specify as many interfaces as you like, but only one of these can be a class. The most flexible way of creating substitutes for multiple types is using this overload:

var substitute = Substitute.For(
		new[] { typeof(ICommand), typeof(ISomeInterface), typeof(SomeClassWithCtorArgs) },
		new object[] { 5, "hello world" }
	);
Assert.IsInstanceOf<ICommand>(substitute);
Assert.IsInstanceOf<ISomeInterface>(substitute);
Assert.IsInstanceOf<SomeClassWithCtorArgs>(substitute);

Substituting for delegates

NSubstitute can also substitute for delegate types by using Substiute.For(). When substituting for delegate types you will not be able to get the substitute to implement additional interfaces or classes.

var func = Substitute.For<Func<string>>();

func().Returns("hello");
Assert.AreEqual("hello", func());

Setting a return value

The following examples relate to substituting for the following interface:

public interface ICalculator {
	int Add(int a, int b);
	string Mode { get; set; }
}

For methods

To set a return value for a method call on a substitute, call the method as normal, then follow it with a call to NSubstitute’s Returns() extension method.

var calculator = Substitute.For<ICalculator>();
calculator.Add(1, 2).Returns(3);

This value will be returned every time this call is made. Returns() will only apply to this combination of arguments, so other calls to this method will return a default value instead.

//Make a call return 3:
calculator.Add(1, 2).Returns(3);
Assert.AreEqual(calculator.Add(1, 2), 3);
Assert.AreEqual(calculator.Add(1, 2), 3);

//Call with different arguments does not return 3
Assert.AreNotEqual(calculator.Add(3, 6), 3);

For properties

The return value for a property can be set in the same was as for a method, using Returns(). You can also just use plain old property setters for read/write properties; they’ll behave just the way you expect them to.

calculator.Mode.Returns("DEC");
Assert.AreEqual(calculator.Mode, "DEC");

calculator.Mode = "HEX";
Assert.AreEqual(calculator.Mode, "HEX");

Argument matchers

Argument matchers should only be used when setting return values or checking received calls. Using Arg.Is or Arg.Any without a call to Returns(...) or Received() can cause your tests to behave in unexpected ways. See How NOT to use argument matchers for more information.

Ignoring arguments

An argument of type T can be ignored using Arg.Any<T>().

calculator.Add(Arg.Any<int>(), 5).Returns(7);

Assert.AreEqual(7, calculator.Add(42, 5));
Assert.AreEqual(7, calculator.Add(123, 5));
Assert.AreNotEqual(7, calculator.Add(1, 7));

In this example we return 7 when adding any number to 5. We use Arg.Any<int>() to tell NSubstitute to ignore the first argument.

We can also use this to match any argument of a specific sub-type.

formatter.Format(new object());
formatter.Format("some string");

formatter.Received().Format(Arg.Any<object>());
formatter.Received().Format(Arg.Any<string>());
formatter.DidNotReceive().Format(Arg.Any<int>());

Conditionally matching an argument

An argument of type T can be conditionally matched using Arg.Is<T>(Predicate<T> condition).

calculator.Add(1, -10);

//Received call with first arg 1 and second arg less than 0:
calculator.Received().Add(1, Arg.Is<int>(x => x < 0));
//Received call with first arg 1 and second arg of -2, -5, or -10:
calculator
    .Received()
    .Add(1, Arg.Is<int>(x => new[] {-2,-5,-10}.Contains(x)));
//Did not receive call with first arg greater than 10:
calculator.DidNotReceive().Add(Arg.Is<int>(x => x > 10), -10);

If the condition throws an exception for an argument, then it will be assumed that the argument does not match. The exception itself will be swallowed.

formatter.Format(Arg.Is<string>(x => x.Length <= 10)).Returns("matched");

Assert.AreEqual("matched", formatter.Format("short"));
Assert.AreNotEqual("matched", formatter.Format("not matched, too long"));
// Will not match because trying to access .Length on null will throw an exception when testing
// our condition. NSubstitute will assume it does not match and swallow the exception.
Assert.AreNotEqual("matched", formatter.Format(null));

Matching a specific argument

An argument of type T can be matched using Arg.Is<T>(T value).

calculator.Add(0, 42);

//This won't work; NSubstitute isn't sure which arg the matcher applies to:
//calculator.Received().Add(0, Arg.Any<int>());

calculator.Received().Add(Arg.Is(0), Arg.Any<int>());

This matcher normally isn’t required; most of the time we can just use 0 instead of Arg.Is(0). In some cases though, NSubstitute can’t work out which matcher applies to which argument (arg matchers are actually fuzzily matched; not passed directly to the function call). In these cases it will throw an AmbiguousArgumentsException and ask you to specify one or more additional argument matchers. In some cases you may have to explicitly use argument matchers for every argument.

Matching out and ref args

Argument matchers can also be used with out and ref (NSubstitute 4.0 and later with C# 7.0 and later).

calculator
    .LoadMemory(1, out Arg.Any<int>())
    .Returns(x => {
        x[1] = 42;
        return true;
    });

var hasEntry = calculator.LoadMemory(1, out var memoryValue);
Assert.AreEqual(true, hasEntry);
Assert.AreEqual(42, memoryValue);
PreviousNSubstituteNextBehavior Verification (Method Was/Not Called, a Specific Number of Times, Getter/Setter Was Called)

Last updated 5 years ago

Argument matchers can be used when and when . They provide a way to specify a call or group of calls, so that a return value can be set for all matching calls, or to check a matching call has been received.

The argument matchers syntax shown here depends on having C# 7.0 or later. If you are stuck on an earlier version (getting an error such as CS7085: By-reference return type 'ref T' is not supported while trying to use them) please use instead.

setting return values
checking received calls
compatibility argument matchers