I want to test ASP.NET application using NUnit, but it seems WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings collection is empty when running from NUnit GUI.
Could you tell me how to initialize this collection (probably in [SetUp] function of [TestFixture])? Should I copy Web.config somethere?
Thank you!
NUnit .config file location depends on how you created the NUnit project file
Where .config files for NUnit tests are located is a little bit more complicated than other posts here suggest. There are settings for this in the NUnit GUI Project/Edit dialogue. The default values all depend upon how you created your NUnit project file.
When you open the NUnit GUI and select File/Open and then select a .dll file a new project gets set up with settings to look for a config file with the same name as the dll in the same directory. So if you loaded \bin\debug\MyTests.dll NUnit looks for \bin\Debug\MyTests.dll.config by default. The only trouble with this is that when you create a release build you need to create a separate NUnit project.
If you have created the NUnit project by selecting File/NewProject then the default setting is to look for a config file with the same name as the NUnit project. So if you created \MyNUnitProject.nunit NUnit looks for \MyNUnitProject.config by default.
The chances are you have used Visual Studio to create an \App.config file and stuck it in the source folder for your test dll. When you buld your test project this gets copied to \bin\Debug\MyTests.dll.config or \bin\Release\MyTests.dll.config depending upon the configuration you have selected. If you have opened the MyTest.dll directly in NUnit this will work fine, however if you have created a new NUnit project you’re in trouble as it will not look for these files by default.
To resolve the issue you need to open up the Project/Edit dialog in the NUnit GUI and check that you have two Configurations Debug & Release to match your .Net project. Once you have done this you can select the Debug Configuration and set the ApplicationBase to bin\Debug\ and set the Configuration File Name to MyTests.dll.config. Do the same for the Release configuration and away you go.
If you have your unit-test assembly named Company.Component.Tests.dll, then just make sure that Company.Component.Tests.dll.config is there with the proper connection string.
Additionally, it might be a good idea to decouple your connection provider class from the configuration, so that you will have flexibility in persistence (i.e.: switching from *.config to something else) and easier testing.
Also check out "How NUnit Finds Config Files"
You can use the app.config for libraries (where I assume your tests are) and put them in there.
Related
I have a standard way of working for building and deploying my asp .net applications on a build server (usually Jenkins). I have a custom build script and publish profile that builds my solution, copies some files and publishes the web project all with a single call to MSBuild.
I am trying to recreate this in Azure DevOps. My first obstacle seems to be that build and "publish" (or "release" in DevOps parlance) are separate steps. But it also seems like maybe I don't need to "publish"?
So
How do I control what ends up in the "artifacts" folder of the build? Is that through Azure? Can I do it with a .MSBuild file? And
Do I even need the concept of "publish" or does the release step just copy all artifacts to the destination (a VM in this case)? Can I control what gets deployed?
I am having a hard time finding some kind of basic tutorial that cover asp .net projects being deployed this way.
How do I control what ends up in the "artifacts" folder of the build? Is that through Azure? Can I do it with a .MSBuild file?
Yes, we could use the MSBuild Arguments parameter /p:PackageLocation=$(build.artifactstagingdirectory) to control what ends up in the "artifacts" folder.
When we use the task Visual Studio build to build the project, we could edit the MSBuild Arguments parameter to be like: /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=Test /p:PackageLocation=$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)
Then we could use Publish Build Artifacts task to publish build artifacts to Azure Pipelines, TFS, or a file share.
Do I even need the concept of "publish" or does the release step just copy all artifacts to the destination (a VM in this case)? Can I control what gets deployed?
Yes, you can simply understand the release step just copy artifacts to the destination. If you want to control what gets deployed, you can filter the artifacts when you use the copy task with contents.
Check the article Deploying Web Applications Using Team Build and Release Management for the details.
Hope this helps.
If you have existing scripts that work, just use those :). The new YAML builds are moving slowly away from fully featured UI tasks with lots of logic to more bare bones scripts that do what is needed.
It is a common practice though to split build from publish. That way you can put in additional checks, reviews and approvers on the release stage.
In your case it would mean:
Build stage
Use MsBuild to build & create a publish package either in the form of a folder or a zip file.
Use the Publish Pipeline Artifact task to store this folder or zip file
Release stage
Use the Download Pipeline Artifact task to restore the file to publish
Optionally use a Infra as Code tool to prep the target environment.
Use msdeploy.exe or another tool to publish the package. Optionally generate and pass in a settings file to override certain settings.
This way you can have multiple release stages to generate test environments, temporary POC environments etc by simply using another set of variables and/or settings override file.
There are special tasks in Azure Pipelines that wrap around these tools and provide an easy to use UI and some additional logic. These can be very useful if you don't have intimate knowledge of the commandline tools. If you do know your way around them, there may not be a very strong reason to use the fancy tasks.
My application uses NLog as a logging framework hidden behind a facade in MyLogging project. The project is referenced by a number of web sites to not make them directly dependent on NLog. After compilation NLog.config from the logging project ends up in bin folders of each site and NLog manages to find it automatically during startup. That is understandable and pretty much OK. However, editing any file within bin folder forces ASP.NET to restart the working process so I'd like to have NLog.config one folder up beside regular web.config.
Things I'm trying to achieve\avoid:
Keep NLog configuration in a single file `cause it's the same for all of my web sites
Not to embed it into sites web.config (to not trigger ASP.NET auto-restart)
Just moving the file after building projects with msbuild command is not an option because the sites are deployed to Azure (moved files won't be packaged during publishing process)
I'd like to avoid messing with post-deployment scripts and hard coding things like E:\siteroot\0
The issue is not actually NLog specific as I'd have same trouble with standard app.config files. What are my options here?
For ASP.NET applications, it's recommend to set:
"Build Action" to "content". Otherwise it won't be copied to the root folder (folder with web.config)
"copy to Output Directory" to "none". Otherwise it will be copied to your bin folder.
See:
How can I enable migrations in a testing project?
PM> Enable-Migrations
Could not load assembly 'CreditoImobiliarioBB.EntityFramework.Test'. (If you are using Code First Migrations inside Visual Studio this can happen if the startUp project for your solution does not reference the project that contains your migrations. You can either change the startUp project for your solution or use the -StartUpProjectName parameter.)
Have you verified that your Startup Project (in Solution Explorer) and your Default Project (in Package Manager Console) are set correctly?
The Startup Project setting should be familiar to you if you've developed any web applications before. e.g. if you have an ASP.NET MVC web project, this should be selected as the startup project (shown in bold) in the Solution Explorer.
As you probably know, this ensures that running the application will load this web project in the browser. In addition to that, you should also know that this is where Migrations will try to locate the web.config file with the proper DB connection string.
The Default Project setting (different from the aforementioned Startup Project) setting is set in a dropdown within the Package Manager Console, where you run commands such as Enable-Migrations, Add-Migration and Update-Database.
I would recommend enabling your migrations in a data layer project. But if you want to use your Test project, make sure you select the name of the Test project in the Default Project dropdown of your Package Manager Console.
Hope this helps!
I have a separate project which performs watiN tests. The project is in the form of class library project. When I run test it launches the browser and then uses the Web.config of the Web Application Project which I am testing. The Web.config of web application project has the Dev connection string which should not be used for testing.
What are different ways that I can take and tell my WatiN to use the App.config that is inside the WatiN project and not the Web application project?
Here are couple of options that I have:
1) Replace the connection string at runtime.
2) Replace the connection string at pre-build event or something.
Here is what I did:
Before a test is run there is some custom code that goes to the Web.config file and then switches the connection string from DEV to TEST.
After the test is completed it changes it back to DEV again!
Try using this way of copying your whole config file (you can tweak it to do it before & after to swap the test & QA connections strings)
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ManagingMultipleConfigurationFileEnvironmentsWithPreBuildEvents.aspx
When I build my ASP.NET web application I get a .dll file with the code for the website in it (which is great) but the website also needs all the .aspx files and friends, and these need to be placed in the correct directory structure. How can I get this all in one directory as the result of each build? Trying to pick the right files out of the source directory is a pain.
The end result should be xcopy deployable.
Update: I don't want to have to manually use the Publish command which I'm aware of. I want the full set of files required by the application to be the build output - this means I also get the full set of files in one place from running MSBuild.
One solution appears to be Web Deployment Projects (WDPs), an add-on for Visual Studio (and msbuild) available that builds a web project to a directory and can optionally merge assemblies and alter the web.config file. The output of building a WDP is all the files necessary to deploy the site in one directory.
More information about Web Deployment Projects:
Announcement on webdevtools MSDN blog for WDP 2008
ScottGu introduction to WDP 2005
The only disadvantage to this solution is the requirement on an add-on which must be available on the build machine. Still, it's good enough for now!
ASP.NET doesn't have real xcopy deployment for new sites. It depends on having a virtual directory/Application in IIS. However, once that virtual directory is created you can use xcopy for updates.
You can Publish Web site..If you want to automate your deployment, you need to use some script.
Have you tried using the aspnet_compiler.exe in your .net framework directory? I'm pretty sure you can create a "deploy ready" version of a web application or web site.
The _CopyWebApplication target on MSBuild will do exactly what you need. The catch is that only the main assembly will be copied to the bin folder and that's why a copy task is needed to also copy any other file on the bin folder.
I was trying to post the sample script as part of this post but wasn't able to.
Please take a look at this article on my blog that describes how to create a MSBuild script similar to the one you need.
Have you tried right clicking the website in Solution Explorer and clicking 'Publish Website'?
Build --> Publish
A dialog box will appear that will guide you through the process.
For the automated building you describe in the update, I would recommend you look into MSBuild and CruiseControl.NET
It depends on how complicated solution you need, you could just use a script and jenkins for example. You can use MSBUild with Jenkins for just deploying to an IIS. And if you got Jenkins other tools is pretty easy to connect into it later on. But if you just want to build, use a script that jenins execute every build that uses MSDeploy and it will work great.
This is how i do it, just to give you a feeling:
Sonarqube uses Gallio, Gendarme, FXcop, Stylecop, NDepths and PartCover to get your metrics and all this is pretty straight forward since SonarQube do this automatically without much configuration.
Here is Jenkins witch builds and get Sonar metrics and a another job for deploying automatically to IIS. I use a simple script one line that calls my MSBuild and wich URL, pass and user.
And Sonarqube, all metrics for my project. This is a simple MVC4 app, but it works great!:
If you want more information can i provide you with a good guide.
This whole setup uses MSBuild, too build and deploy the apps.