.NET Core is an open source, multi-platform, and multi-purpose runtime for .NET applications developed by Microsoft.
With .NET Core you can build console and web applications using a variety of languages, like C# and F# and run them in Windows, Mac, Linux or Docker.
What will we be building?
The obvious answer when you want to build a demo application is a todo list.
What do we need to start?
Before starting there are certain tools you need to install.
Setting up the workspace
Install the .NET Core SDK, we will be using version 2.1.
Download and install Visual Studio Code.
Install the C# extension. If you want to set up a better workspace for C# then you can follow this article.
Now we are prepared to start.
Let’s start!
Assuming you followed the steps listed in the Setting up the workspace section we can start building our application.
Setting up the projects
Create a new ASP .NET MVC project by running the following commands:
mkdir Todolist
cd Todolist
dotnet new mvc --name=TodolistThis will create a new project called Todolist inside the current directory.
Now we have to create a xUnit project. We do that by running:
dotnet new xunit --name=Todolist.TestsThis will create a new xUnit project inside the Todolist.Testsdirectory, it will generate a first test called UnitTest1.cs, you can delete it.
Now we have to add a reference to our ASP project into our xUnit project. We do that by running the following commands.
cd Todolist.Tests
dotnet add reference ../Todolist/Todolist.csprojAfter that we have to add some dependencies for the task of testing:
dotnet add package Microsoft.AspNetCore.App --version 2.1.6
dotnet add package Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Testing --version 2.1.3And specify that we will be using the web SDK in our Todolist.Tests.csproj
Before
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">After
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">Now we have two projects inside the Todolist directory, an ASP MVC project, and a xUnit project, we have to establish a relation between the two projects, we do that by using a solution, first of all, let's create a solution:
cd ../
dotnet new slnNow let’s add our projects to the solution file by running:
dotnet sln add ./Todolist/Todolist.csproj
dotnet sln add ./Todolist.Tests/Todolist.Tests.csprojNow we can start the development server and see your project working. This template includes some views built with Bootstrap 3, so the project is not empty by default. Let’s run the following commands:
dotnet runOur application should start working in http://localhost:5000 and https://localhost:5001, we will be using the HTTPS route because configuring the SSL certificate for Linux will depend on the distribution you are using.
If you visit http://localhost:5000 you can see the application working, start browsing.
Writing our first test
As we are following the TDD approach the first thing we need to do is define our tests, then write our implementation, for simplicity I will write tests for all the functionalities, and then I will write the actual implementations, in a real scenario you should write your tests one at a time.
Let’s create a new file called Controllers/TodoControllerTestinside our tests project, it will look like this:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using Todolist.Controllers;
using Todolist.Models;
using Xunit;namespace Todolist.Tests.Controllers
{
public class TodoControllerTest : IDisposable
{
private TodoController controller; private TodoContext todoContext; public TodoControllerTest()
{
var optionsBuilder = new DbContextOptionsBuilder<TodoContext>(); optionsBuilder.UseInMemoryDatabase("test"); todoContext = new TodoContext(optionsBuilder.Options); todoContext.Todos.Add(new Todo { Id = 1, Title = "Go to the supermarket" });
todoContext.SaveChanges(); controller = new TodoController(todoContext);
} public void Dispose()
{
var todo = todoContext.Todos.SingleOrDefault(currentTodo => currentTodo.Id == 1); if (todo == null) {
return;
} todoContext.Todos.Remove(todo);
todoContext.SaveChanges();
} [Fact]
public void Index_ReturnsViewResult_WithAListOfTodos_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Index();
var viewResult = Assert.IsType<ViewResult>(result); Assert.IsAssignableFrom<List<Todo>>(viewResult.Model);
} [Fact]
public void Create_ReturnsViewResult_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Create();
var viewResult = Assert.IsType<ViewResult>(result);
} [Fact]
public void PostCreate_RedirectsToIndex_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Create(new Todo { Id = 2, Title = "Go to the supermarket" });
var redirectToActionResult = Assert.IsType<RedirectToActionResult>(result); Assert.Equal("Index", redirectToActionResult.ActionName);
} [Fact]
public void Edit_ReturnsViewResult_WithATodo_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Edit(1);
var viewResult = Assert.IsType<ViewResult>(result); Assert.IsAssignableFrom<Todo>(viewResult.Model);
} [Fact]
public void PostEdit_RedirectsToIndex_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Edit(new Todo { Id = 1, Title = "Buy Gas" });
var redirectToActionResult = Assert.IsType<RedirectToActionResult>(result); Assert.Equal("Index", redirectToActionResult.ActionName);
} [Fact]
public void Show_ReturnsViewResult_WithATodo_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Show(1);
var viewResult = Assert.IsType<ViewResult>(result); Assert.IsAssignableFrom<Todo>(viewResult.Model);
} [Fact]
public void Delete_RedirectsToIndex_WhenSucceeded()
{
var result = controller.Delete(1);
var redirectToActionResult = Assert.IsType<RedirectToActionResult>(result); Assert.Equal("Index", redirectToActionResult.ActionName);
}
}
}Here we are defining a test class for our TodoController, which in this case will be our single controller in the whole application.
First of all, we defined two private properties, controller and todoContext, these objects will help us during our tests.
Then we put our object in a valid state by initializing our properties in the constructor, we create new context pointing to an in-memory database, insert a new register, and then inject the context to our TodoController. In the Dispose method we delete the dummy register in our in-memory database after running each test, that way we make sure we start every test with fresh data; the if clause is for avoiding errors after testing the Delete method, which deletes our only register.
The rest of the methods are simple tests for each one of the controller methods.
If we run this test class we will get nothing but errors, which is good, we know how our code should behave, the only thing we need to do now is writing it.
Setting up the database
In our Todolist project, inside our Models directory we will create two classes TodoContext and our model, Todo.
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;namespace Todolist.Models
{
public class TodoContext : DbContext
{
public TodoContext(DbContextOptions<TodoContext> options)
: base(options)
{
} public DbSet<Todo> Todos { get; set; }
}
} namespace Todolist.Models
{
public class Todo
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
}
}We just defined how we will be interacting with our database, now we have to inject our context in the service container to be resolved automatically. We will be using an SQLite database, but first, we have to install a package in our Todolist project, because SQLite is not supported by Entity Framework out of the box. We do so by running:
dotnet add Todolist package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite --version 2.1.4Now we have to go to the Startup.cs file in the root of our Todolistproject and modify the ConfigureServices methods by adding the following lines:
services.AddDbContext<TodoContext>(options =>
options.UseSqlite("Data Source=todos.db"));Note: Don’t forget to add the using Todolist.Models; and using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore; statements at the top of the file!
Perfect, now our application knows we want to use an SQLite database called todos.db which will be in the root of our Todolist project.
Running the first migration
After configuring our application to work with SQLite we have to create a migration with our table(s) schema, luckily you don’t have to write any code for this, just use the following commands:
cd Todolist
dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate
dotnet ef database updateWriting the business logic
Now inside the Controllers directory, we will define the TodoController class.
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Todolist.Models;namespace Todolist.Controllers
{
public class TodoController : Controller
{
private TodoContext context; public TodoController(TodoContext context)
{
this.context = context;
} public IActionResult Index()
{
return View(context.Todos.ToList());
} public IActionResult Create()
{
return View();
} [HttpPost]
public IActionResult Create(Todo todo)
{
context.Todos.Add(todo);
context.SaveChanges(); return RedirectToAction("Index");
} public IActionResult Edit(int id)
{
Todo todo = context.Todos.Find(id); return View(todo);
} [HttpPost]
public IActionResult Edit(Todo editedTodo)
{
var todo = context.Todos.SingleOrDefault(currentTodo => currentTodo.Id == editedTodo.Id);
todo.Title = editedTodo.Title; context.SaveChanges(); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } public IActionResult Show(int id)
{
Todo todo = context.Todos.Find(id); return View(todo);
} public IActionResult Delete(int id)
{
context.Todos.Remove(context.Todos.Single(todo => todo.Id == id));
context.SaveChanges(); return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
}
}Writing the views
Now we have all the behavior on our application, the last thing to do is define our views, create a new directory called Todo inside Views, and put the following files:
Index.cshtml
@model List<Todolist.Models.Todo>@{
ViewData["Title"] = "Index";
}<h2>Todos</h2><table class="table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>
Title
</th>
<th></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
@foreach (var todo in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
@todo.Title
</td>
<td>
<a asp-action="Edit" asp-route-id="@todo.Id" class="btn btn-default">Edit</a>
<a asp-action="Show" asp-route-id="@todo.Id" class="btn btn-info">Show</a>
<a asp-action="Delete" asp-route-id="@todo.Id" class="btn btn-danger">Delete</a>
</td>
</tr>
}
</tbody>
</table><p>
<a class="btn btn-success" asp-action="Create">Add Todo</a>
</p>Edit.cshtml
@model Todolist.Models.Todo@{
ViewData["Title"] = "Edit";
}<h4>Edit @Model.Id</h4>
<hr />
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-4">
<form asp-action="Edit">
<div asp-validation-summary="ModelOnly" class="text-danger"></div>
<input type="hidden" asp-for="Id" />
<div class="form-group">
<label asp-for="Title" class="control-label"></label>
<input asp-for="Title" class="form-control" />
<span asp-validation-for="Title" class="text-danger"></span>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<input type="submit" value="Save" class="btn btn-default" />
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div><div>
<a asp-action="Index">Go back</a>
</div>Create.cshtml
@model Todolist.Models.Todo@{
ViewData["Title"] = "Create";
}<h2>Create</h2><h4>Todo</h4>
<hr />
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-4">
<form asp-action="Create">
<div asp-validation-summary="ModelOnly" class="text-danger"></div>
<div class="form-group">
<label asp-for="Title" class="control-label"></label>
<input asp-for="Title" class="form-control" />
<span asp-validation-for="Title" class="text-danger"></span>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<input type="submit" value="Create" class="btn btn-default" />
</div>
</form>
</div>
</div><div>
<a asp-action="Index">Go back</a>
</div>Show.cshtml
@model Todolist.Models.Todo@{
ViewData["Title"] = "Show";
}<div>
<h4>Todo</h4>
<hr />
<dl class="dl-horizontal">
<dt>
@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Title)
</dt>
<dd>
@Html.DisplayFor(model => model.Title)
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<div>
<a asp-action="Edit" asp-route-id="@Model.Id">Edit</a> |
<a asp-action="Index">Go back</a>
</div>Now our application is finished! If you run the command dotnet runinside the Todolist project, or dotnet run --project Todolistin the main directory (the one that contains both the application, and the testing project) everything should be working properly. Pretty good, ah?
Note: Remember, you have to navigate manually to http://localhost:5000/Todo or https://localhost:5001/Todo because we didn't add a link in the navbar.
You can find the project on Github, feel free to fork it and improve, use it to improve your skills on TDD and .NET.
Post-credits
Here we built a very simple application using a TDD approach, we are just testing the happy path of our application, we are not catching errors or testing undesirable behavior, what would happen if we pass a number higher than the maximum integer allowed by the language to the Editmethod in our TodoController? Those are things to take into account when you are following the TDD approach.
We did not use tools to automate tasks like Scaffolding, the main goal here was to illustrate how to do it all from scratch. I could cover those other topics in future posts.
Also this application lacks security in many ways, we are not doing any kind of validation, neither in our models nor in the frontend, for example, a user could create an empty todo and the system wouldn’t complain!, remember that this is not production code and this application exists with the sole purpose of making this tutorial fully operational.
Also, we didn’t use asynchronous methods in our controller (spoiler alert: in a real application you want to do it) because testing asynchronous methods is a little more complicated.
Source: Medium; Max
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