How do you create a unit test assembly for a .NET Portable Class Library?

Question

I am attempting to unit test a Portable Class Library that I've created and I want to make sure it's being tested with the same framework subset that it targets.

Per the Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server blog, the MSTest unit test framework was converted to a PCL in Visual Studio 2012 RC; however, I am unable to create a portable class library and then reference the MSTest framework in VS2012 RTM.

• Browsing in the "References" dialog shows me that no unit testing components are registered as compatible with PCL.
• Adding a manual GAC reference in the project file to Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework yields a reference not found build error.
• Adding a manual direct assembly reference to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v4.0\Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework.dll yields a build warning saying the UnitTestFramework assembly references an incompatible mscorlib version.

I did find (thanks to an early answer) that there is a project type Unit Test Library (Windows Store apps) that references a different MSTest assembly at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0\ExtensionSDKs\MSTestFramework\11.0\References\CommonConfiguration\neutral\Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestPlatform.UnitTestFramework.dll. This project type creates a small no-UI Windows Store app... complete with manifest and everything. It also doesn't allow me to specify which frameworks I'm targeting - it appears to be only for Windows Store apps.

Under the potentially faulty assumption that I should be testing my Portable Class Library projects with unit test assemblies that target the same framework subset as the library-under-test...

How do I create a unit test assembly for a .NET Portable Class Library?

(I am open to other frameworks that also target PCL, I'm just currently unaware of other solutions besides MSTest that have taken this into account.)

Answer 1

xUnit now has support for PCL unit testing; http://xunit.github.io/