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
  • Conditional test logic
  • Hard-to-test code
  • Test code duplication
  • Test logic in production
  • Obscure tests
  • Erratic tests
  • Slow Tests
  • Assertion Roulette
  • Frequent Debugging
  • Fragile Tests
  1. Verification
  2. Automated Testing (principles, patterns, and practices)

Test smells and how to avoid

Conditional test logic

Symptoms

Conditional statements in the test (if, switch). Test code executes differently each time we run it.

Possible solution

We can replace the if statements that steer execution to a call to fail with a Guard Assertion (Xunit) that causes the test to fail before we reach the code we don’t want to execute.

We can replace Conditional Test Logic for verification of complex objects with an Equality Assertion on an Expected Object. If the production code’s equals method is too strict, we can use a Custom Assertion to defi ne test-specific equality.

Hard-to-test code

Symptoms

Some kinds of code are inherently difficult to test—GUI components, multithreaded code, and test code, for example. It may be difficult to get at the code to be tested because it is not visible to a test. It may be problematic to compile a test because the code is too highly coupled to other classes.

Possible solution

The key to testing overly coupled code is to break the coupling (a Test Double or, more specifically, a Test Stub or Mock Object).

The key to testing asynchronous code is to separate the logic from the asynchronous access mechanism.

Test code duplication

Symptoms

The same test code is repeated many times.

Possible solution

The best solution is to use an Extract Method refactoring to create a Test Utility Method from one of the examples and then to generalize that method to handle each of the copies.

Test logic in production

Symptoms

The code that is put into production contains logic that should be exercised only during tests.

The logic in the SUT(System Under Testing) is there solely to support testing. This logic may be “extra stuff” that the tests require to gain access to the SUT’s internal state for fi xture setup or result verifi cation purposes. It may also consist of changes that the logic of the system undergoes when it detects that it is being tested.

Possible solution

Instead of adding test logic into the production code directly, we can move logic into a substitutable dependency. We can put code that should be run in only production into a Strategy [GOF] object that is installed by default and replaced by a Null Object when running our tests.

When a test requires test-specific equality, we should use a Custom Assertion instead of modifying the equals method.

Obscure tests

Symptoms

We are having trouble understanding what behavior a test is verifying.

Possible solution

Use meaningfull namings, use Parameterized Creation Methods to get test objects, fixture values that do not matter to the test should be defaulted within Creation Methods.

Erratic tests

Symptoms

We have one or more tests that run but give different results depending on when they are run and who is running them.

Possible solution

In case of Interacting Tests we could eliminate this problem entirely by using a Fresh Fixture (each test constructs its own brand-new test fixture for its own private use).

In case of Resource Leakage we should convert the test to use a Fresh Fixture by creating the resource as part of the test’s fixture setup phase. This approach ensures that the resource exists wherever it is run.

Slow Tests

Symptoms

The tests take long enough to run that developers don’t run them every time they make a change to the SUT.

Possible solution

We can make our tests run much faster by replacing the slow components with a Test Double that provides near-instantaneous responses.

Reduce the amount of fi xture setup performed by each test.

Avoid asynchronicity in tests by testing the logic synchronously

Assertion Roulette

Symptoms

It is hard to tell which of several assertions within the same test method caused a test failure.

Possible solution

Break up the test into a suite of Single-Condition Tests.

Frequent Debugging

Symptoms

Manual debugging is required to determine the cause of most test failures.

Possible solution

Doing true test-driven development is the best way to avoid the circumstances that lead to Frequent Debugging. We should start as close as possible to the skin of the application and do storytest-driven development—that is, we should write unit tests for individual classes as well as component tests for the collections of related classes to ensure we have good Defect Localization.

Fragile Tests

Symptoms

A test fails to compile or run when the SUT is changed in ways that do not affect the part the test is exercising.

Possible solution

Interface sensitivity: define of a Higher-Level Language that is used to express the tests. The verbs in the test language are translated into the appropriate method calls by the encapsulation layer, which is then the only software that needs to be modifi ed when the interface is altered in somewhat backward-compatible ways.

Behavioral sencitivity: newly incorrect assumptions about the behavior of the SUT used during fixture setup may be encapsulated behind Creation Methods. Similarly, assumptions about the details of post-test state of the SUT can be encapsulated in Custom Assertions or Verifi cation Methods.

The best solution to Data Sensitivity is to make the tests independent of the existing contents of the database—that is, to use a Fresh Fixture.

Context sencitivity: we need to control all the inputs of the SUT if our tests are to be deterministic. If we depend on inputs from other systems, we may need to control these inputs by using a Test Stub.

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Last updated 5 years ago