如何获得用于单元测试的数据模板？

Question

I need to write a unit test for this method:

public void MethodToTest(Data data)
{
     // ... some actions with data   
}

Data class:

public class Data
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
    public string Surname { get; set; }
    // ... hundred other properties
}

In my test I need some template object of Data type to manipulate it. But this class has too many complex properties to write this "template" manually. In real program Data objects are retrieved from DB. While debugging I can serialize some of them into XML or JSON. But then I need somehow deserialize it for test. Is believe there are a common patterns and tools to solve such issues. So what is a proper way to do it?

Answer 1

If MethodToTest only uses a few parts of the Data class, you can define an interface that segregates those properties:

public interface PersonalData {
  string Name {get; set; }
  int Age {get; set; }
  string Surname {get; set; }
}

public void MethodToTest (PersonalData data) { ... }

and have Data implement this interface

public class Data: PersonalData { ... }

Then you can use a test class that implements PersonalData for your test (or you might use a mocking framework to generate an implementation of PersonalData ).