Tool to write an object instance to C# (for unit testing)

Question

Say I have a method that takes a list of objects. The method will normally take 20 objects easy. Each object has 15 or so properties on them.

To unit test this, I need to type out all 20 objects so that I can pass them into my method.

This is frustrating when I can see perfectly good examples of what I need sitting there in my debugger watch window.

Is there a tool to take an object that I have and make it output to C#?

NOTE: I saw this question: How can I serialize an object to C# object initializer code? but the code it generates does not work...

I can't think I am the first to want this. Is it harder than I think? or are there tools out there that do it already?

I agree with Daniel. but as a side note I would recommend thinking about extending that list. Would you mind posting that method? — Robert Snyder, May 31 '13 at 19:28
The method is a hypothetical one. I am just proposing it to illustrate what I am looking for. — Vaccano, May 31 '13 at 19:34
@newStackExchangeInstance - The idea is that these objects are loaded from the database. So to unit test using the objects I need to create them manually. They cannot be random. The data in them is what will determine if my tests pass or fail. — Vaccano, May 31 '13 at 19:59
Try NBuilder to build your test objects http://nbuilder.org/ — Jurica Smircic, May 31 '13 at 20:15

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:22

3

I created a visual studio plugin called Object Exporter which does exactly this. You can export an object instance in C#, JSON or XML.

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:22

Omar Elabd

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Thomas C. G. de Vilhena · Answer 2 · 2013-05-31T20:35:57.220

I often use the JavaScriptSerializer Class to convert extensive objects to/from text for unit testing purposes:

var fruits = new List<string>();
fruits.Add("Apple");
fruits.Add("Banana");
fruits.Add("Blueberry");
fruits.Add("Orange");

var jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var text = jss.Serialize(fruits);
Console.WriteLine(text);

The code above will produce the following output:

["Apple","Banana","Blueberry","Orange"]

Which can be converted back to an object like shown below:

var jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var text = "[\"Apple\",\"Banana\",\"Blueberry\",\"Orange\"]";
var fruits = jss.Deserialize<List<string>>(text);

This workaround has saved me from a lot of boring typing ;)

Tool to write an object instance to C# (for unit testing)

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