为什么不建立我的UWP单元测试项目会生成测试dll

Question

I'm trying to run unit tests from the command line. For this, I need the test dlls, as per this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182490.aspx

In the Prerequisites section on that page, it says I need to "Run a Unit Test and Fix Your Code"

Question 1: Do I need to run tests from VS to be able to run them from command line? Surely not?

Now to the more important bit. When I build my solution, regardless of whether it's via VS or command line using MSBuild, I do not get any dlls generated for my tests.

I know this is for C++ but thought might still be relevant https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/a89c2173-90e6-47b2-af8e-48865969cbca/msbuild15-does-not-create-a-dll-file-after-building-the-c-native-unit-test-project?forum=msbuild . (not that it helped of course).

Question 2: Why don't my unit test dlls get generated when building?

Answer 1

UWP is a bit different from other projects when it comes to Unit Testing. Universal Windows Apps run in a sandbox to make sure they don't do things they don't have permissions for. For this reason, the unit test project is not a simple DLL only, but in fact a full-fledged UWP app (and the generated executable has appx extension), that is launched and performs the tests.

That said, you can still launch the unit test project from the console using a special command as you can see in this SO answer .

vstest.console.exe /Platform:x64 AppPackages\UnitTestProject1_1.0.0.0_x64_Debug_Test\UnitTestProject1_1.0.0.0_x64_Debug.appx