Dummy ObjectList generator for unit testing

Question

Can anyone inform whether there is any good framework in c# that will generate dummy objects and lists so that we don't need to generate the stub data manually?

Answer 1

You can try NBuilder. It's purpose is rapid generation of test objects.

If you have Employee class:

public class Employee
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public DateTime Birthday { get; set; }
} 

Generating list of 10 Employee object is simple like this:

var employees = Builder<Employee>.CreateListOfSize(10).Build();

It will generate unique incremental values for all fields of object:

Name1 7/12/2012
Name2 7/13/2012
Name3 7/14/2012
...

Also NBuilder has nice powerful fluent interface, which allows to setup custom values for any generated object:

var employees = Builder<Employee>.CreateListOfSize(10)
    .TheFirst(1).With(e => e.Name = "Sergey")
    .All().With(e => e.Address = Builder<Address>.CreateNew().Build())
    .Build();

Also you can take a look at:

• Autofixture
• AutoPoco
• Symply Test Data

Answer 2

The framework I like to use and does what you ask is the following: Rhino Mocks

This is for C#, and its superior.

Answer 3

The framework I like to use and does what you ask is the following: Unitils

but then again, I don't know for which programming language you are asking ? The one proposed is for Java.

Answer 4

If you need to create fake implementations of interfaces or abstract classes then there's a bunch of "mocking frameworks" available. One of them is Rhimo Mocks mentioned by Harry. For you as a beginner in this area I'd also suggest Moq as it's more straightforward compared to Rhino Mocks (IMHO).

Answer 5

Everyone likes realistic fake data, use Bogus library.

var faker = new Faker("en");

var emailList = Enumerable.Range(1, 5)
      .Select(_ => faker.Internet.Email())
      .ToList();

//OUTPUT:
Gustave83@hotmail.com    
Evie33@gmail.com 
Abby_Wilkinson@yahoo.com 
Cecilia.Hahn@yahoo.com   
Jasen.Waelchi85@gmail.com