Since Windows Azure SDK 1.2 back in 2010 I’m trying to get my unittests up and running. I posted about it on the Microsoft forum and consulted the JustMock forum. Nobody was able to provide the solution as it looks like a loophole in C#. Last week I came across AzureContrib project on codeplex and the project from Noopman gave me a good workaround: use wrappers.

Wrappers are used to decouple from the Microsoft assemblies and to introduce Interfaces for easy unittesting. This also gives me the opportunity to do a little trick with static operations and a singleton. See code below.

// My RoleEnvironment wrapper
public class RoleEnvironmentHelper
{
    // Initializes the RoleEnvironmentHelper class on first (static) use.
    static RoleEnvironmentHelper()
    {
        // singleton implementation
        Implementation = new RoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation();
    }
    // The implementation which can be replaced by a Mock.
    public static RoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation Implementation { get; set; }
    // Gets the local resource from RoleEnvironment.
    public static ILocalResource GetLocalResource(string nameOfLocalResource)
    {
        return Implementation.GetLocalResource(nameOfLocalResource);
    }
}
// My implementation class
public class RoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation
{
    public virtual ILocalResource GetLocalResource(string nameOfLocalResource)
    {
        // use the Microsoft Windows Azure SDK RoleEnvironment to do the real work
        var resource = RoleEnvironment.GetLocalResource(nameOfLocalResource);
        // wrap the resource to use our Interface
        return new LocalResourceWrapper(resource);
    }
    // My LocalResource wrapper
    // internal class because the Interface is used for usage outside this implementation class
    internal class LocalResourceWrapper : ILocalResource
    {
        // Initializes the LocalResourceWrapper class 
        public LocalResourceWrapper(LocalResource resource)
        {
            Imp = resource;
        }
        // All properties are delegated to this implementation
        private LocalResource Imp { get; set; }
        // ILocalResource implementation
        public int MaximumSizeInMegabytes { get { return Imp.MaximumSizeInMegabytes; } }
        public string Name { get { return Imp.Name; } }
        public string RootPath { get { return Imp.RootPath; } }
    }
}
// ILocalResource for completeness
public interface ILocalResource
{
    // These are the public properties from the LocalResource abstract class
    int MaximumSizeInMegabytes { get; }
    string Name { get; }
    string RootPath { get; }
}

The RoleEnvironmentHelper removes the need for Windows Azure SDK assembly references in my main projects when it lives in its own WindowsAzure.Util assembly. Also I can replace the Implementation by a Mock object that only has to return a Mock/Stub of type ILocalResource. No more compiler errors, no more problems upgrading the SDK assemblies and the possibility to move to another platform. Win-win-win I would say. A sample unittest for JustMock, Rhino Mocks and Microsoft Moles below

[TestMethod]
public void GetLocalResource_Name_with_telerik_justmock_implementation()
{
    // Arrange
    var stub = Mock.Create<ILocalResource>();
    Mock.Arrange(() => stub.Name).Returns("some_resource");
    var mock = Mock.Create<RoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation>(Behavior.Strict);
    // GetLocalResource should return our stub
    mock.Arrange((ILocalResource) => mock.GetLocalResource("some_resource")).Returns(stub);
    // Use our mock for the RoleEnvironment implementation
    RoleEnvironmentHelper.Implementation = mock;

    // Act
    var result = RoleEnvironmentHelper.GetLocalResource("some_resource");

    // Assert
    Assert.IsNotNull(result);
    Assert.AreEqual<string>("some_resource", result.Name);
}

[TestMethod]
public void GetLocalResource_RootPath_with_rhino_mock_implementation()
{
    // Arrange
    var repo = new MockRepository();
    var stub = repo.Stub<ILocalResource>();
    SetupResult.For(stub.RootPath).Return(@"c:\temp");
    var mock = repo.StrictMock<RoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation>();
    // GetLocalResource should return our stub
    mock.Expect((ILocalResource) => mock.GetLocalResource("some_resource")).Return(stub);
    // Use our mock for the RoleEnvironment implementation
    RoleEnvironmentHelper.Implementation = mock;
    repo.ReplayAll();

    // Act
    var result = RoleEnvironmentHelper.GetLocalResource("some_resource");

    // Assert
    Assert.IsNotNull(result);
    Assert.AreEqual<string>(@"c:\temp", result.RootPath);
}

[TestMethod]
[HostType("Moles")]
public void GetLocalResource_MaximumSize_with_Moles_implementation()
{
    // Arrange
    var stub = new SILocalResource();
    stub.MaximumSizeInMegabytesGet = () => { return 1024; };
    var mock = new MRoleEnvironmentHelperImplementation();
    // GetLocalResource should return our stub
    mock.GetLocalResourceString = (input) => { return stub; };
    // Use our mock for the RoleEnvironment implementation
    RoleEnvironmentHelper.Implementation = mock;

    // Act
    var result = RoleEnvironmentHelper.GetLocalResource("some_resource");

    // Assert
    Assert.IsNotNull(result);
    Assert.AreEqual<int>(1024, result.MaximumSizeInMegabytes);
}

Microsoft Moles is available in Visual Studio 11 (beta) with the name Fakes.