Testing route configuration in ASP.NET WebApi

Question

I am trying to do some unit testing of my WebApi route configuration. I want to test that the route "/api/super" maps to the Get() method of my SuperController. I've setup the below test and am having a few issues.

public void GetTest() {     var url = "~/api/super";      var routeCollection = new HttpRouteCollection();     routeCollection.MapHttpRoute("DefaultApi", "api/{controller}/");      var httpConfig = new HttpConfiguration(routeCollection);     var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, url);      // exception when url = "/api/super"     // can get around w/ setting url = "http://localhost/api/super"     var routeData = httpConfig.Routes.GetRouteData(request);     request.Properties[HttpPropertyKeys.HttpRouteDataKey] = routeData;      var controllerSelector = new DefaultHttpControllerSelector(httpConfig);      var controlleDescriptor = controllerSelector.SelectController(request);      var controllerContext =         new HttpControllerContext(httpConfig, routeData, request);     controllerContext.ControllerDescriptor = controlleDescriptor;      var selector = new ApiControllerActionSelector();     var actionDescriptor = selector.SelectAction(controllerContext);      Assert.AreEqual(typeof(SuperController),         controlleDescriptor.ControllerType);     Assert.IsTrue(actionDescriptor.ActionName == "Get"); } 

My first issue is that if I don't specify a fully qualified URL httpConfig.Routes.GetRouteData(request); throws a InvalidOperationException exception with a message of "This operation is not supported for a relative URI."

I'm obviously missing something with my stubbed configuration. I would prefer to use a relative URI as it does not seem reasonable to use a fully qualified URI for route testing.

My second issue with my configuration above is I am not testing my routes as configured in my RouteConfig but am instead using:

var routeCollection = new HttpRouteCollection(); routeCollection.MapHttpRoute("DefaultApi", "api/{controller}/"); 

How do I make use of the assigned RouteTable.Routes as configured in a typical Global.asax:

public class MvcApplication : HttpApplication {     protected void Application_Start()     {         // other startup stuff          RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     } }  public class RouteConfig {     public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)     {         // route configuration     } } 

Further what I have stubbed out above may not be the best test configuration. If there is a more streamlined approach I am all ears.

Answer 1

I was recently testing my Web API routes, and here is how I did that.

1. First, I created a helper to move all Web API routing logic there:

    public static class WebApi     {         public static RouteInfo RouteRequest(HttpConfiguration config, HttpRequestMessage request)         {             // create context             var controllerContext = new HttpControllerContext(config, Substitute.For<IHttpRouteData>(), request);              // get route data             var routeData = config.Routes.GetRouteData(request);             RemoveOptionalRoutingParameters(routeData.Values);              request.Properties[HttpPropertyKeys.HttpRouteDataKey] = routeData;             controllerContext.RouteData = routeData;              // get controller type             var controllerDescriptor = new DefaultHttpControllerSelector(config).SelectController(request);             controllerContext.ControllerDescriptor = controllerDescriptor;              // get action name             var actionMapping = new ApiControllerActionSelector().SelectAction(controllerContext);              return new RouteInfo             {                 Controller = controllerDescriptor.ControllerType,                 Action = actionMapping.ActionName             };         }          private static void RemoveOptionalRoutingParameters(IDictionary<string, object> routeValues)         {             var optionalParams = routeValues                 .Where(x => x.Value == RouteParameter.Optional)                 .Select(x => x.Key)                 .ToList();              foreach (var key in optionalParams)             {                 routeValues.Remove(key);             }         }     }      public class RouteInfo     {         public Type Controller { get; set; }          public string Action { get; set; }     } 

1. Assuming I have a separate class to register Web API routes (it is created by default in Visual Studio ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application project, in the App_Start folder):

    public static class WebApiConfig     {         public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)         {             config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(                 name: "DefaultApi",                 routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",                 defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }             );         }     } 

1. I can test my routes easily:

    [Test]     public void GET_api_products_by_id_Should_route_to_ProductsController_Get_method()     {         // setups         var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "http://myshop.com/api/products/1");         var config = new HttpConfiguration();          // act         WebApiConfig.Register(config);         var route = WebApi.RouteRequest(config, request);          // asserts         route.Controller.Should().Be<ProductsController>();         route.Action.Should().Be("Get");     }      [Test]     public void GET_api_products_Should_route_to_ProductsController_GetAll_method()     {         // setups         var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "http://myshop.com/api/products");         var config = new HttpConfiguration();          // act         WebApiConfig.Register(config);         var route = WebApi.RouteRequest(config, request);          // asserts         route.Controller.Should().Be<ProductsController>();         route.Action.Should().Be("GetAll");     }      .... 

Some notes below:

• Yes, I'm using absolute URLs. But I don't see any issues here, because these are fake URLs, I don't need to configure anything for them to work, and they representing real requests to our web services.
• You don't need to copy you route mappings code to the tests, if they are configured in the separate class with HttpConfiguration dependency (like in the example above).
• I'm using NUnit, NSubstitute and FluentAssertions in the above example, but of course it's an easy task to do the same with any other test frameworks.