Unit tests are failing when run from dotCover - unit-testing

I have a TFS 2015 build which builds one of our applications (it's an ASP.NET Web API application). As part of the build process it runs our unit tests.
I have a Visual Studio Test build step which runs these unit tests and they all pass okay.
I then run dotCover from this same build to determine code coverage (no we don't use the built-in code coverage as we don't have enterprise licences). However, when run from dotCover all the same unit tests fail.
I use a script step to run a batch file which invokes dotCover as follows.
E:\JetBrains\Installations\dotCover05\dotCover.exe analyse coverage.xml /LogFile=dotcover.log
The dotCover log file doesn't seem to give any indications as to why the unit tests have failed.
Any ideas why the unit tests pass when run from the Visual Studio Test build step and then fail when run from dotCover?

It seems that the problem is related to the fact that my build uses an XML file to hold certain data values. This XML file is found by VSTest when run under TFS but not by dotCover.
When dotCover runs it creates a TestResults folder which it then copies all the necessary files to required to run the unit tests. All files are copied except the XML file. I have set the file to "Copy always" so can't understand why this file isn't copied. I tried copying the file manually as a batch file but the folder structure is created by dotCover so it doesn't exist until I actually run the code coverage.
The solution is to decorate my test classes with the DeploymentItem() attribute.
[TestClass]
[DeploymentItem("File.xml")]
This has resolved my problem.

Make sure your build service account have enough permission to run the dotcove.exe. According to your E:\JetBrains\Installations\dotCover05\dotCover.exe Seems you didn't install for all users on the build agent. Which should installed under %ProgramFiles(x86)% not %LOCALAPPDATA%\JetBrains\Installations.
Try to use CoreInstructionSet parameter in your dotCover as a workaround for your situation. Details see below picture.
After doing this try to run the build again.

You can also try this method if it is failed by the file copying: Shadow-copying in dotCover: if your NUnit tests fail during continuous testing .

Related

Visual Studio 2015 not running C++ unit tests

This is weird.
Firstly, loading the solution doesn't detect the two unit tests - I have to modify the unit test and do a rebuild for the tests to appear in test explorer.
Once I've done that, I can run a unit test ONCE. After that, I get:
Message: Failed to set up the execution context to run the test
How did it run the test the first time and not the subsequent times? Using depends.exe I can see there's one file missing: Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.CppUnitTestFramework.x64.dll. I tried copying this file to the output directory but it made no difference.
The output directory contains all the files required by the main application to run, so all I've done is place the unit test DLL in that same directory. The test runs once then all subsequent runs die.
Found a solution. On the Test menu, Test Settings turn OFF Keep Test Execution Engine Running. Now I can run any test as much as I need to.

Run MsTest separately from Visual Studio

I am looking for a tool either command line or GUI which copies the changed assemblies from the solution to a separated folder - so that a new build afterwards does not influence the test run. Afterwards it should executed a configurable set of tests (only certain assemblies, with filtering certain TestCategories). When it is finished the test results should be shown.
Is there a tool or a set of tools which does these tasks? MsTest.exe could run the test but not copy all necessary assemblies.
Using a combination of the MsTest command line tool (or the visual studio runner) in combination with post-build step to copy the assemblies locally are not good, because it would slow down every build, but I will not run the tests locally every time I build the solution. I could write a little script which copies the necessary assemblies locally beforehand. But what I was hoping for is a tool which does all this without me having to write a script.
Copy files
To copy assemblies from the commandline you can use the standard copy command. To just copy "Changed" assemblies is harder, unless you're doing incremental builds.
xcopy, copy will suffice here.
MsBuild is the other tool that you can use to copy the files. You can create a post-build event or a custom target that doesn't run inside Visual Studio. It would only run when you set a specific condition or call the target explicitly from the commandline.
The handy fact is that MsBuild at least knows which files are required to build the files. Do note though, that MsBuild may now know exactly what is needed to run your tests. Certain config files and dependencies of 3rd party references may be needed too, but not part of the project.
I'm not aware of any other tools. I'd personally opt to write a simple script, as it isn't hard to do and maintain.
Run the tests
There is the commandline vstest.console.exe which will happily run the MsTest based tests.
The syntax looks like this:
vstest.console.exe /TestCaseFilter:[ expression ] assemblyone.dll assembly2.dll
Note 1
Every time you run MsBuild to build your assemblies to build your project, even if all the MSIL generated is the same, your assembly will be different, as the compiler will assign a new unique GUID to the file.
So unless your build is incremental and detects that there is no need to actually build the file to begin with, it's going to generate unique files every time.
Note 2
Indeed, as other mention, Continuous Integration tools like tfsbuild or teamcity can help you build and run your tests and create a nice report for you.
More advanced tools such as ms-release-management or octopus-deploy can run your tests during a deployment workflow when you're doing continuous-delivery or even better continuous-deployment.
I think you are describing a team integration system.
You can use MS Team Build or the online version of it from visualstudio.com.
The other popular option is TeamCity
Both of these allow you to configure them so that they trigger a build that run your tests (or a subset of tests based on categories). If the build fails or if a test fails you have the option to react to this (e.g. reject the checkin)

TFS run unit tests failing because of missing files

I have a big code base in TFS which has multiple .sln files, each with many projects and at least one unit test project. Most of the unit tests rely on common XML and XSD files, and there are several other types of files (.config, .xaml, etc) that are needed by the code when unit testing.
Because of the way that TFS builds and gathers the files for unit testing, most of those files are missing from the TestResults folder, so the tests are failing during our CI builds [this has been happening for a while, but I'm new to the project, and am trying to fix the errors]. What TFS appears to do is this: First, it checks out all the code to a src folder (with Solution1, Solution2, etc) and builds it, just like the developers do locally. Second, it copies the build outputs to a bin\Binaries folder. Third, it looks for all the test.dll files, copies them and their dependencies (but only the dependencies), plus the App.config file to TestResults\Deploy_[date/time]\Out folder, and runs the unit tests there.
I am encountering two problems with this. Because the second step is combining all the build outputs into one folder, all the files with duplicate names are overwriting each other. So, there is only one App.config file, even though each solution has its own. This is happening with other config/xml files too, and with two poorly named unit test .dlls. I can live with this if I have to because most of those config files are duplicates, and other files can be renamed.
The second problem is that most of those extra files don't make it into the TestResults folder, and when they aren't there the unit tests will fail. I know about using the [DeploymentItem] attribute; if that is the only solution, I will go that route, but there are so many extra files that I am looking for a different approach.
So my question is, how can I configure my tfs-run builds & unit tests to include all of the files that they need, without all the work & maintenance problems of adding a lot of [DeploymentItem] attributes, and also without affecting the local builds & unit tests for the developers?
Update
One thing I've found is that adding a [DeploymentItem] attribute to a unit test actually causes the deployment folder to be used. Without that, it runs the unit tests in the binaries folder. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182475.aspx, under "When is a separate deployment folder used?"
Also on that page, it says you can specify files to deploy in a .testsettings file, but then says you should avoid using it because your tests will run slower. The newer alternative, a .runsettings file, does not let you list what files to deploy.
It also appears that deployment becomes enabled if code coverage is enabled, which we don't currently do, but plan to once the tests are passing.
In TFS 2013 you can execute a powershell pre-test to organize the files in a way that you need. You can get files to be deployed ad part of the tests with a test settings file for pre2013.
If however the test setting file is not enough you can use the Community Build tools to call a powershell directly in previous versions to 2013.
If you are stuck on 2012 then you will need to use the .testsettings file to push the bits you need. Yes it will make your build slower but that's your only choice other than customising the build process as above.

Teamcity NUnit Tests - No assemblies found

I am trying to get TeamCity set up for a project. I want to run a scheduled build that includes a step where NUnit Tests are run.
My NUnit build step looks like this:
Runtime: NUnit-2.6.3 v4.0 MSIL
Run tests on: **/Tests/*.dll
Execute: If all previous steps finished successfully
But every time I run the build I get an error saying:
No assemblies were found.
Why is this happening and how can I fix it? Also, conceptually, this build step will happen BEFORE the project is actually built. But how will there be any Test DLLs (assemblies) unless the project is built in the first place?
I would suggest that you build your projects before running tests. Most common way to achieve this is that you have separate configurations for building code and running tests.
Your build configuration would generate artefacts (containing assemblies most likely).
Test run configuration would extract this artefact package, via artefacts dependency, then in build step you run tests from specific assembly.
This is the most common approach and using this approach you do not have to worry about files in the files system. Teamcity's snapshot isolation and artefacts dependencies will take care of this (when properly configured)
If you need an example how to achieve this, let me know.

Running unit tests on Team Foundation Server (TFS) builds

What are the steps to get Team Foundation Server running unit tests when a given build runs?
What are the caveats / pitfalls / workarounds a dev or sysadmin should be aware of when setting up a TFS server to do this for the first time?
What are common troubleshooting steps for unit test problems during builds?
it depends on which version of TFS you are running, so I will assume it is 2008.
Firstly, you must have Team Edition for Testers installed on the computer that will act as your build agent, as stated in How To: Create a Build Definition
There are a couple of ways to tell Team Build to run tests for your build.
Unit tests can be run from a defined Test List within the Solution being built. This list is referenced by the build definition and all tests within the chosen list(s) are executed. More info here
WildCard test exectution is also available by defining a wildcard mask (i.e. Test*.dll) that instructs Team Build to run any tests present in assemblies that match the mask. This is done when defining the build definition as well.
Things to note:
If you intend to use the wildcard method and want to enable code coverage for your test configuration, you must add the following to your build definition file to enable it.
<RunConfigFile>$(SolutionRoot)\TestRunConfig.testrunconfig</RunConfigFile>
See my previous question on this for more info here
If you don't want to use test configs (A Pain in the ass to manage) just run all the test in a .dll by adding this to the build config:
<ItemGroup>
<TestContainerInOutput Include="MyProject.UnitTests.dll" />
</ItemGroup>
The whole process is smooth and fairly simple. You can inspect the unit tests that filaed on the build server by opening the test result file locally (a bit of a pain) but generally you'll just run the unit tests locally and you can see the results immediately.
If you are used to NUnit, you may opt to sort the tests by classname, it gives a similar view.
Careful with code coverage, it makes complete copies of your binaries on compile. If your binaries are sufficiently large and you compile often, it will eat through drive space quickly.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc981972(v=vs.90).aspx
I like this defination as it gives you a complete 'walkthrough' from
Creating the Project
Creating the Unit Test Project
To configuring Team build to use it Unit Test