Ruthlessly Helpful

Unless you want your automated tests to send a text message to one of your users, you ought to use a fake phone number. In the U.S., there is the “dummy” 555 phone exchange, often used for fictional phone numbers in the movies and television.

These fake phone numbers are very helpful. For example, use these fake numbers to test the data entry validation of telephone numbers through the user interface.

example.com, example.org, example.net, and example.edu

What about automated tests that verify email address validation? Try using firstname.lastname@example.com.

In all the testing that you do, select fake Internet data:

Fake URLs: http://www.example.com/default.aspx
Fake top-level domain (TLD) names: .test, .example, .invalid
Fake second-level domain names: example.com, example.org, example.net, example.edu
Fake host names: http://www.example.com, http://www.example.org, http://www.example.net, http://www.example.edu

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain#Reserved_domains

Fake Social Security Numbers

In the U.S., a Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration. Since the SSN is unique for every individual, it is personally identifiable information (PII), which warrants special handling. As a best practice, you do not want PII in your test data, scripts, or code.

There are special Social Security numbers which will never be allocated:

• Numbers with all zeros in any digit group (000-##-####, ###-00-####, ###-##-0000).
• Numbers of the form 666-##-####.
• Numbers from 987-65-4320 to 987-65-4329 are reserved for use in advertisements.

For many, changing all the SSNs to use the 987-00-xxxx works great, where xxxx is the original last four digits of the SSN. If duplicate SSNs are an issue then use the 666 prefix or 000 prefix (or use sequential numbers for the center digit group) as a way to resolve duplicates.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_number#Valid_SSNs

More Fake Data

There are tons of sources of fake data out on the Internet. Here is one such place to start your search:
http://www.quicktestingtips.com/tips/category/test-data/

The is the fourth and final part in the Four Ways to Fake Time series. In Part 3 you learned how to use the IClock interface to improve testability. Using the IClock interface is very effective for new application development. However, when maintaining a legacy system adding a new parameter to a class constructor might be a strict no-no.

This part looks at how a mock isolation framework can help. The goal of isolation testing is to test the code-under-test in a way that is separate from dependencies and any underlying components or subsystems. This post looks at how to fake time using the product TypeMock Isolator.

Fake Time 4: Mock Isolation Framework

The primary benefit of a mock isolation framework is that no refactoring of the code-under-test is needed. In other words, you can test legacy code as it is, without having to improve its testability before writing maintainable test code. Here is the code-under-test:

using System;
using Lender.Slos.Utilities.Configuration;

namespace Lender.Slos.Financial
{
    public class ModificationWindow
    {
        private readonly IModificationWindowSettings _settings;

        public ModificationWindow(
            IModificationWindowSettings settings)
        {
            _settings = settings;
        }

        public bool Allowed()
        {
            var now = DateTime.Now;

            // Start date's month & day come from settings
            var startDate = new DateTime(
                now.Year, 
                _settings.StartMonth, 
                _settings.StartDay);

            // End date is 1 month after the start date
            var endDate = startDate.AddMonths(1);

            if (now >= startDate && 
                now < endDate)
            {
                return true;
            }

            return false;
        }
    }
}

With TypeMock, the magic happens in two ways. First, the test method arrangement uses the Isolate class to setup expectations. The test method sets up the DateTime.Now property so that it returns currentTime as its value. This fakes the Allowed method.
Here is the revised test code:

[TestCase(1)]
[TestCase(5)]
[TestCase(12)]
[Isolated] // This is a TypeMock attribute
public void Allowed_WhenCurrentDateIsInsideModificationWindow_ExpectTrue(
    int startMonth)
{
    // Arrange
    var settings = new Mock<IModificationWindowSettings>();
    settings
        .SetupGet(e => e.StartMonth)
        .Returns(startMonth);
    settings
        .SetupGet(e => e.StartDay)
        .Returns(1);

    var classUnderTest =
        new ModificationWindow(settings.Object);

    var currentTime = new DateTime(
        DateTime.Now.Year,
        startMonth,
        13);

    Isolate
        .WhenCalled(() => DateTime.Now)
        .WillReturn(currentTime); // Setup getter to return the test's clock

    // Act
    var result = classUnderTest.Allowed();

    // Assert
    Assert.AreEqual(true, result);
}

Second, the test must run in an isolated environment. This is how TypeMock fakes the behavior of System.DateTime; the test is running within the TypeMock environment. Here is the TypeMock Isolator configuration window.

The Cost of Isolation

Since TypeMock Isolator is a commercial product, be prepared to make the case for purchasing Typemock. Here is some information on the business case for TypeMock: http://www.typemock.com/typemock-newsletters/2011/3/7/typemock-newsletter-march-2011.html

I find that TypeMock Isolator 6.2.3.0 is well integrated with Visual Studio 2010 SP1, ReSharper 6.1 and dotCover 1.2.

In Chapter 2 of Pro .NET Best Practices, you learn about Microsoft Research and the Pex and Moles project. Moles is a Visual Studio power tool, and you will find the latest download through the Visual Studio Gallery. As I describe, the Moles framework allows Pex to test code in isolation so that Pex is able to automatically generate tests. Therefore, you can use Moles to write unit tests that fake time.

Moles, as a way to fake time, is described in the Channel 9 post Moles – Replace any .NET method with a delegate and the blog post Did you know Microsoft makes a mocking tool?.

Just like Code Contracts, I hope and expect that Microsoft will make Moles a more significant part of .NET and Visual Studio. Today, I don’t find that Moles offers the same level of integration (for now?) with ReSharper and dotCover that TypeMock has. When I use Moles, I run my test code within their isolation environment from the command line. It works, but I really do prefer using the ReSharper test runner.

To sum up the mock isolation framework approach:
Pros:

• Works well when applied to legacy or Brownfield code
• No impact on class-users and method-callers
• A system-wide approach
• Testability is greatly improved

Cons:

• Tests must run within an isolation environment
• Commercial isolation frameworks can be cost prohibitive

I hope you found this overview of four ways to fake time to be helpful. I certainly would appreciate hearing from you about any new, different, and hopefully better ways to fake time in coded testing.