I am writing test cases using the Unit Test for ASP.NET Web API.
Now I have an action which makes a call to some method I have defined in the service layer, where I have used the following line of code.
string username = User.Identity.Name; // do something with username // return something Now how to I create unit test method for this, I am getting null reference exceptions. I am kinda new to writing unit test and stuff.
I want to use Unit Test only for this. Please help me out on this.
The below one is only one way of doing this:
public class FooController : ApiController { public string Get() { return User.Identity.Name; } } public class FooTest { [Fact] public void Foo() { var identity = new GenericIdentity("tugberk"); Thread.CurrentPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal(identity, null); var controller = new FooController(); Assert.Equal(controller.Get(), identity.Name); } } 
Here's another way I found in the NerdDinner testing tutorial. It worked in my case:
DinnersController CreateDinnersControllerAs(string userName) { var mock = new Mock<ControllerContext>(); mock.SetupGet(p => p.HttpContext.User.Identity.Name).Returns(userName); mock.SetupGet(p => p.HttpContext.Request.IsAuthenticated).Returns(true); var controller = CreateDinnersController(); controller.ControllerContext = mock.Object; return controller; } [TestMethod] public void EditAction_Should_Return_EditView_When_ValidOwner() { // Arrange var controller = CreateDinnersControllerAs("SomeUser"); // Act var result = controller.Edit(1) as ViewResult; // Assert Assert.IsInstanceOfType(result.ViewData.Model, typeof(DinnerFormViewModel)); } Make sure you read the full section: Mocking the User.Identity.Name property
It uses the Moq mocking framework that you can install in your Test project using NuGet: http://nuget.org/packages/moq
With WebApi 5.0 this is slightly different. You can now do:
controller.User = new ClaimsPrincipal( new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity("user"), null)); 
Controller in System.Web.Mvc.dll, and IPrincipal User only has a get, no set...None of this ended up working for me, I used the solution on another question which uses Moq to set up a user name in the ControllerContext: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6752924/347455
This is my solution.
var claims = new List<Claim> { new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, "Nikita"), new Claim(ClaimTypes.NameIdentifier, "1") }; var identity = new ClaimsIdentity(claims); IPrincipal user = new ClaimsPrincipal(identity); controller.User = user; 
Here i found the solution for another way that how to set the user identity name for the controller level testing from the test method.
public static void SetUserIdentityName(string userId) { IPrincipal principal = null; principal = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity(userId), new string[0]); Thread.CurrentPrincipal = principal; if (HttpContext.Current != null) { HttpContext.Current.User = principal; } } When I run Unit test - in my case it uses Windows authentication and Identity.Name is my domain name, which I also want to change for the test. So I use such approach with 'hacking' things I want in IAuthenticationFilter
If you have lots of Controllers to Test then I Would Suggest to create a base class and in the constructor create a GenericIdentity & GenericPrincipal and set Thread.CurrentPrincipal
GenericPrincipal principal = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity("UserName"),null); Thread.CurrentPrincipal = principal; Then Inherit that class .. So that way every Unit Test class will have Principle Object Set
[TestClass] public class BaseUnitTest { public BaseUnitTest() { GenericPrincipal principal = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity("UserName"),null); Thread.CurrentPrincipal = principal; } } [TestClass] public class AdminUnitTest : BaseUnitTest { [TestMethod] public void Admin_Application_GetAppliction() { } } Not sure if AspNetCore changed a lot, but nowadays in Net7 you can simply do this
someController.ControllerContext.HttpContext = new DefaultHttpContext { User = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity(userName) , new []{string.Empty}) }; An example with a working unit test
[Test] public async Task GetAll_WhenUserNotExist_ReturnsNotFound() { // arrange var autoMock = AutoMock.GetLoose(); const string userName = "[email protected]"; var customersServiceMock = autoMock.Mock<ICustomerService>(); customersServiceMock .Setup(service => service.GetAll(userName)).Throws<UserDoesNotExistException>(); var customerController = autoMock.Create<CustomerController>(); // // Create a new DefaultHttpContext and assign a generic identity which you can give a user name customerController.ControllerContext.HttpContext = new DefaultHttpContext { User = new GenericPrincipal(new GenericIdentity(userName) , new []{string.Empty}) }; var httpResult = await customerController.GetAllCustomers() as NotFoundResult; // act Assert.IsNotNull(httpResult); } The implementation of the controller
[HttpGet] [Route("all")] public async Task<IActionResult> GetAllCustomers() { // User identity name will return harry@potter now. var userName = User.Identity?.Name; try { var customers = await _customerService.GetAll(userName).ConfigureAwait(false); return Ok(customers); } catch (UserDoesNotExistException) { Log.Warn($"User {userName} does not exist"); return NotFound(); } } 