Testing codes with ConfigurationManager.AppSettings

When developing an ASP .NET MVC or WebAPI based application, we eventually need to read configurations from <appSettings> section of Web.Config file. Here is an example entry from my imaginary project:

<configuration>
  <!-- other config sections -->

  <appSettings>
    <add key="app.name" value="My Application" />
    <add key="app.domain" value="mydomain.com" />
    <add key="encryption.algorithm" value="TripleDES" />
    <add key="encryption.key" value="MY_KEY" />
    <add key="encryption.vector" value="MY_VECTOR" />
    <!-- other entries -->
  </appSettings>

  <!-- other config sections -->
</configuration>

If we need to get a specific settings value, easiest way to get this:

var encryptionAlgorithm = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["encryption.algorithm"];

This is pretty fine. However, it does make your code difficult to unit test. Because, when you are running tests, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings may not behave the way it behaves in your web application. So, your tests may eventually fail even if there is nothing wrong with you business logic.

To make codes testable, I prefer having a service/provider for AppSettings. This is injected as a dependency wherever I need it. Here is the simple wrapper:

using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Configuration;

public interface IAppSettings
{
    string this[string key] { get; }
}

public class AppSettingsWrapper : IAppSettings
{
    private readonly NameValueCollection appSettings;

    public AppSettingsWrapper()
    {
        this.appSettings = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings;
    }
    public string this[string key]
    {
        get
        {
            return this.appSettings[key];
        }
    }
}

Also, it would be better to configure this wrapper as a singleton or single instance in your DI container.

Now, you can easily mock this IAppSettings and run your tests without worrying about ConfigurationManager.

Here is a sample test written using MSpec and NSubstitute:

[Subject(typeof(MyService))]
public class MyServiceTests
{
    Establish context = () =>
        {
            otherDependency = Substitute.For<IMyOtherDependency>();

            var appSettings = Substitute.For<IAppSettings>();
            appSettings["app.name"].Returns("My Test Application");

            myService = new MyService(otherDependency, appSettings);
        };

    Because of = () => result = myService.PerformOperations();

    It should_call_my_dependency_utility_method_once = () => otherDependency.Received(1).UtilityMethod();

    It should_execute_successfully = () => result.ShouldBeTrue();


    private static IMyService myService;
    private static IMyOtherDependency otherDependency;
    private static bool result;
}

Happy testing. :)

Testing codes with ConfigurationManager.AppSettings

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