Unit test pdf

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. I'm late to the party with regards to using unit testing I figure a text based file xml , I could just see if the strings match, but what about a binary file pdf? Should I just check against a MD5 hash? Should I even be testing this? I use pdfbox to extract text from generated PDF and check if it cointains the data it should. You need think how deep you want to go, the deeper you go the more time you will spend fixing the tests after a change i never had a bug that text was in the wrong place and maybe thats why i dont test for it.

Another way would be to use the same PDF library you use to write it to read it or use someting like iText if you generate PDF from template using some framework. For mission-critical PDFs e. You'd want to check layout, font-sizes, text-wrapping, etc. For the same reasons that we use Selenium to check web pages. I took the approach of turning the PDF into an image, and comparing that image against a known "correct" image. Our PDFs didn't change very often, and didn't contain anything that changed over time e.

So this approach worked well - using the same input data, we could always generate the same output PDF. Now to the next question of how, would a binary file compare utility work for comparing expected and actual pdfs? If yes, I'd use that. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. How to design a unit test for generating a PDF document? Ask Question. Asked 11 years, 2 months ago. Active 3 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 8k times. Thanks in advance. Click OK to accept the defaults to create your unit tests, or change the values used to create and name the unit test project and the unit tests. You can select the code that is added by default to the unit test methods. Now jump ahead to learn how to Write your tests to make your unit test meaningful, and any extra unit tests that you might want to add to thoroughly test your code.

A unit test project usually mirrors the structure of a single code project. The test project names are arbitrary, but adopting a standard naming convention is a good idea. In the New Project dialog box, expand the Installed node, choose the language that you want to use for your test project, and then choose Test. To use one of the Microsoft unit test frameworks, choose Unit Test Project from the list of project templates.

Otherwise, choose the project template of the unit test framework that you want to use. To test the Accounts project of our example, you would name the project AccountsTests. Not all third-party and open source unit test frameworks provide a Visual Studio project template. Consult the framework document for information about creating a project. Type test in the project template search box to find a unit test project template for the test framework that you want to use.

In the examples in this topic, we use MSTest. On the next page, name the project. To test the Accounts project of our example, you could name the project AccountsTests. In your unit test project, add a reference to the code project under test, in our example to the Accounts project.

In the unit test project in Solution Explorer, right-click the References or Dependencies node, and then choose Add Project Reference or Add Reference , whichever is available. On the Reference Manager dialog box, open the Solution node and choose Projects.

Select the code project name and close the dialog box. Each unit test project contains classes that mirror the names of the classes in the code project. In our example, the AccountsTests project would contain the following classes:. AccountInfoTests class contains the unit test methods for the AccountInfo class in the Accounts project. CheckingAccountTests class contains the unit test methods for CheckingAccount class. The unit test framework that you use and Visual Studio IntelliSense will guide you through writing the code for your unit tests for a code project.

To run in Test Explorer , most frameworks require that you add specific attributes to identify unit test methods. The frameworks also provide a way—usually through assert statements or method attributes—to indicate whether the test method has passed or failed.

Other attributes identify optional setup methods that are at class initialization and before each test method and teardown methods that are run after each test method and before the class is destroyed.

The Arrange section of a unit test method initializes objects and sets the value of the data that is passed to the method under test. The Assert section verifies that the action of the method under test behaves as expected.

NET, methods in the Assert class are often used for verification. To test the CheckingAccount. Withdraw method of our example, we can write two tests: one that verifies the standard behavior of the method, and one that verifies that a withdrawal of more than the balance will fail The following code shows an MSTest unit test, which is supported in.

In the CheckingAccountTests class, we add the following methods:. For more information about the Microsoft unit testing frameworks, see one of the following topics:. Use the MSTest framework in unit tests. If you're using the MSTest framework, you can use the TimeoutAttribute to set a timeout on an individual test method:.

When you build the test project, the tests appear in Test Explorer. You can choose different group by options in the toolbar. You can also filter the tests in any view by matching text in the search box at the global level or by selecting one of the pre-defined filters. You can run any selection of the tests at any time. Details of a test method result are displayed when you select the test. The Test Explorer toolbar helps you discover, organize, and run the tests that you are interested in.

Select a test to view the details of that test in the test details pane. Choose Open Test from the right-click menu Keyboard: F12 to display the source code for the selected test. If individual tests have no dependencies that prevent them from being run in any order, turn on parallel test execution with the toggle button on the toolbar. This can noticeably reduce the time taken to run all the tests. If individual tests have no dependencies that prevent them from being run in any order, turn on parallel test execution in the settings menu of the toolbar.

Running unit tests after each build requires Visual Studio Enterprise edition or Visual Studio In Visual Studio , the feature is available in Community and Professional edition, in addition to Enterprise edition.

To run your unit tests after each local build, open the settings icon in the Test Explorer toolbar and select Run Tests After Build. When you have a large number of tests, you can type in the Test Explorer search box to filter the list by the specified string.

You can restrict your filter event more by choosing from the filter list. For more information, see Run unit tests with Test Explorer. A: Use Test Explorer to start a debugging session for your tests. Stepping through your code with the Visual Studio debugger seamlessly takes you back and forth between the unit tests and the project under test.

To start debugging:. In the Visual Studio editor, set a breakpoint in one or more test methods that you want to debug.

Because test methods can run in any order, set breakpoints in all the test methods that you want to debug. In Test Explorer , select the test methods and then choose Debug Selected Tests from the shortcut menu. Learn more details about debugging unit tests. A: Use Quick Actions to generate classes and methods in your project code. Write a statement in a test method that calls the class or method that you want to generate, then open the lightbulb that appears under the error.

If the call is to a constructor of the new class, choose Generate type from the menu and follow the wizard to insert the class in your code project. If the call is to a method, choose Generate method from the IntelliSense menu. Q: Can I create unit tests that take multiple sets of data as input to run the test? A: Yes. Data-driven test methods let you test a range of values with a single unit test method.

Use a DataSource attribute for the test method that specifies the data source and table that contains the variable values that you want to test.

In the method body, you assign the row values to variables using the TestContext. DataRow[ ColumnName ] indexer. These procedures apply only to test methods that you write by using the Microsoft unit test framework for managed code. If you're using a different framework, consult the framework documentation for equivalent functionality. For example, assume we add an unnecessary method to the CheckingAccount class that is named AddIntegerHelper. AddIntegerHelper adds two integers.

The AddIntegerHelperData table defines columns to specify the first and second operands of the addition and a column to specify the expected result. We fill a number of rows with appropriate values.