Unit testing that events are raised in C# (in order)

Question

Everything you've done is correct, providing you want your test to ask "What is the last event that was raised?"

Your code is firing these two events, in this order

• Property Changed (... "My Property" ...)
• Property Changed (... "MyOtherProperty" ...)

Whether this is "correct" or not depends upon the purpose of these events.

If you want to test the number of events that gets raised, and the order they get raised in, you can easily extend your existing test:

[TestMethod]
public void Test_ThatMyEventIsRaised()
{
    List<string> receivedEvents = new List<string>();
    MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

    myClass.PropertyChanged += delegate(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        receivedEvents.Add(e.PropertyName);
    };

    myClass.MyProperty = "testing";
    Assert.AreEqual(2, receivedEvents.Count);
    Assert.AreEqual("MyProperty", receivedEvents[0]);
    Assert.AreEqual("MyOtherProperty", receivedEvents[1]);
}

If you're doing TDD then event testing can start to generate a lot of repetitive code. I wrote an event monitor that enables a much cleaner approach to unit test writing for these situations.

var publisher = new PropertyChangedEventPublisher();

Action test = () =>
{
    publisher.X = 1;
    publisher.Y = 2;
};

var expectedSequence = new[] { "X", "Y" };

EventMonitor.Assert(test, publisher, expectedSequence);

Please see my answer to the following for more details.

Unit testing that an event is raised in C#, using reflection

This is very old and probably wont even be read but with some cool new .net features I have created an INPC Tracer class that allows that:

[Test]
public void Test_Notify_Property_Changed_Fired()
{
    var p = new Project();

    var tracer = new INCPTracer();

    // One event
    tracer.With(p).CheckThat(() => p.Active = true).RaisedEvent(() => p.Active);

    // Two events in exact order
    tracer.With(p).CheckThat(() => p.Path = "test").RaisedEvent(() => p.Path).RaisedEvent(() => p.Active);
}

See gist: https://gist.github.com/Seikilos/6224204

Below is a slightly changed Andrew's code which instead of just logging the sequence of raised events rather counts how many times a specific event has been called. Although it is based on his code I find it more useful in my tests.

[TestMethod]
public void Test_ThatMyEventIsRaised()
{
    Dictionary<string, int> receivedEvents = new Dictionary<string, int>();
    MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

    myClass.PropertyChanged += delegate(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (receivedEvents.ContainsKey(e.PropertyName))
            receivedEvents[e.PropertyName]++;
        else
            receivedEvents.Add(e.PropertyName, 1);
    };

    myClass.MyProperty = "testing";
    Assert.IsTrue(receivedEvents.ContainsKey("MyProperty"));
    Assert.AreEqual(1, receivedEvents["MyProperty"]);
    Assert.IsTrue(receivedEvents.ContainsKey("MyOtherProperty"));
    Assert.AreEqual(1, receivedEvents["MyOtherProperty"]);
}

Based on this article, i have created this simple assertion helper :

private void AssertPropertyChanged<T>(T instance, Action<T> actionPropertySetter, string expectedPropertyName) where T : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        string actual = null;
        instance.PropertyChanged += delegate (object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            actual = e.PropertyName;
        };
        actionPropertySetter.Invoke(instance);
        Assert.IsNotNull(actual);
        Assert.AreEqual(propertyName, actual);
    }

With this method helper, the test becomes really simple.

[TestMethod()]
public void Event_UserName_PropertyChangedWillBeFired()
{
    var user = new User();
    AssertPropertyChanged(user, (x) => x.UserName = "Bob", "UserName");
}

Don't write a test for each member - this is much work

(maybe this solution is not perfect for every situation - but it shows a possible way. You might need to adapt it for your use case)

It's possible to use reflection in a library to test if your members are all responding to your property changed event correctly:

• PropertyChanged event is raised on setter access
• Event is raised correct (name of property equals argument of raised event)

The following code can be used as a library and shows how to test the following generic class

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Linq;

/// <summary>
/// Check if every property respons to INotifyPropertyChanged with the correct property name
/// </summary>
public static class NotificationTester
    {
        public static object GetPropertyValue(object src, string propName)
        {
            return src.GetType().GetProperty(propName).GetValue(src, null);
        }

        public static bool Verify<T>(T inputClass) where T : INotifyPropertyChanged
        {
            var properties = inputClass.GetType().GetProperties().Where(x => x.CanWrite);
            var index = 0;

            var matchedName = 0;
            inputClass.PropertyChanged += (o, e) =>
            {
                if (properties.ElementAt(index).Name == e.PropertyName)
                {
                    matchedName++;
                }

                index++;
            };

            foreach (var item in properties)
            { 
                // use setter of property
                item.SetValue(inputClass, GetPropertyValue(inputClass, item.Name));
            }

            return matchedName == properties.Count();
        }
    }

The tests of your class can now be written as. (maybe you want to split the test into "event is there" and "event raised with correct name" - you can do this yourself)

[TestMethod]
public void EveryWriteablePropertyImplementsINotifyPropertyChangedCorrect()
{
    var viewModel = new TestMyClassWithINotifyPropertyChangedInterface();
    Assert.AreEqual(true, NotificationTester.Verify(viewModel));
}

Class

using System.ComponentModel;

public class TestMyClassWithINotifyPropertyChangedInterface : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        protected void NotifyPropertyChanged(string name)
        {
            if (PropertyChanged != null)
            {
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(name));
            }
        }

        private int id;

        public int Id
        {
            get { return id; }
            set { id = value;
                NotifyPropertyChanged("Id");
            }
        }
}