How to unit test with ILogger in ASP.NET Core

Question

Just mock it as well as any other dependency:

var mock = new Mock<ILogger<BlogController>>();
ILogger<BlogController> logger = mock.Object;

//or use this short equivalent 
logger = Mock.Of<ILogger<BlogController>>()

var controller = new BlogController(logger);

You probably will need to install Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions package to use ILogger<T>.

Moreover you can create a real logger:

var serviceProvider = new ServiceCollection()
    .AddLogging()
    .BuildServiceProvider();

var factory = serviceProvider.GetService<ILoggerFactory>();

var logger = factory.CreateLogger<BlogController>();

Actually, I've found Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions.NullLogger<> which looks like a perfect solution. Install the package Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions, then follow the example to configure and use it:

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    ...

    services.AddSingleton<ILoggerFactory, NullLoggerFactory>();

    ...
}

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

public class MyClass : IMyClass
{
    public const string ErrorMessageILoggerFactoryIsNull = "ILoggerFactory is null";

    private readonly ILogger<MyClass> logger;

    public MyClass(ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
    {
        if (null == loggerFactory)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException(ErrorMessageILoggerFactoryIsNull, (Exception)null);
        }

        this.logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<MyClass>();
    }
}

and unit test

//using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
//using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

[TestMethod]
public void SampleTest()
{
    ILoggerFactory doesntDoMuch = new Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions.NullLoggerFactory();
    IMyClass testItem = new MyClass(doesntDoMuch);
    Assert.IsNotNull(testItem);
}   

UPDATE (thanks @Gopal Krishnan for the comment):

With Moq >= 4.15.0 the following code is working (the cast is no longer needed):

 loggerMock.Verify(
                x => x.Log(
                    LogLevel.Information,
                    It.IsAny<EventId>(),
                    It.Is<It.IsAnyType>((o, t) => string.Equals("Index page say hello", o.ToString(), StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)),
                    It.IsAny<Exception>(),
                    It.IsAny<Func<It.IsAnyType, Exception, string>>()),
                Times.Once);

Previous version of the answer (for Moq < 4.15.0):

For .net core 3 answers that are using Moq

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/54646657/2164198
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/54809607/2164198
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/56728528/2164198

are no longer working due to a change described in the issue TState in ILogger.Log used to be object, now FormattedLogValues

Luckily stakx provided a nice workaround. So I'm posting it in hope it can save time for others (it took a while to figure the things out):

 loggerMock.Verify(
                x => x.Log(
                    LogLevel.Information,
                    It.IsAny<EventId>(),
                    It.Is<It.IsAnyType>((o, t) => string.Equals("Index page say hello", o.ToString(), StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)),
                    It.IsAny<Exception>(),
                    (Func<It.IsAnyType, Exception, string>) It.IsAny<object>()),
                Times.Once);

Use a custom logger that uses ITestOutputHelper (from xunit) to capture output and logs. The following is a small sample that only writes the state to the output.

public class XunitLogger<T> : ILogger<T>, IDisposable
{
    private ITestOutputHelper _output;

    public XunitLogger(ITestOutputHelper output)
    {
        _output = output;
    }
    public void Log<TState>(LogLevel logLevel, EventId eventId, TState state, Exception exception, Func<TState, Exception, string> formatter)
    {
        _output.WriteLine(state.ToString());
    }

    public bool IsEnabled(LogLevel logLevel)
    {
        return true;
    }

    public IDisposable BeginScope<TState>(TState state)
    {
        return this;
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
    }
}

Use it in your unittests like

public class BlogControllerTest
{
  private XunitLogger<BlogController> _logger;

  public BlogControllerTest(ITestOutputHelper output){
    _logger = new XunitLogger<BlogController>(output);
  }

  [Fact]
  public void Index_ReturnAViewResult_WithAListOfBlog()
  {
    var mockRepo = new Mock<IDAO<Blog>>();
    mockRepo.Setup(repo => repo.GetMany(null)).Returns(GetListBlog());
    var controller = new BlogController(_logger,mockRepo.Object);
    // rest
  }
}

Adding my 2 cents, This is a helper extension method typically put in a static helper class:

static class MockHelper
{
    public static ISetup<ILogger<T>> MockLog<T>(this Mock<ILogger<T>> logger, LogLevel level)
    {
        return logger.Setup(x => x.Log(level, It.IsAny<EventId>(), It.IsAny<object>(), It.IsAny<Exception>(), It.IsAny<Func<object, Exception, string>>()));
    }

    private static Expression<Action<ILogger<T>>> Verify<T>(LogLevel level)
    {
        return x => x.Log(level, 0, It.IsAny<object>(), It.IsAny<Exception>(), It.IsAny<Func<object, Exception, string>>());
    }

    public static void Verify<T>(this Mock<ILogger<T>> mock, LogLevel level, Times times)
    {
        mock.Verify(Verify<T>(level), times);
    }
}

Then, you use it like this:

//Arrange
var logger = new Mock<ILogger<YourClass>>();
logger.MockLog(LogLevel.Warning)

//Act

//Assert
logger.Verify(LogLevel.Warning, Times.Once());

And of course you can easily extend it to mock any expectation (i.e. expection, message, etc …)