--- title: "HTTPSimulator - Simulating HTTP Requests for unit testing made easier" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/20/httpsimulator-simulating-http-requests-for-unit-testing-made.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/20/httpsimulator-simulating-http-requests-for-unit-testing-made.html" published: "2007-06-20T13:20:40" updated: "2007-06-20T13:20:40" tags: [".NET", "Agile", "Agile Related", "Unit Testing"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Phill Haack just released HTTPSimulator - a class to help with running tests against a simulated Http Context, to help simulate requests and more without resorting to needing a web server running for the tests. [via DNK…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # HTTPSimulator - Simulating HTTP Requests for unit testing made easier By Roy Osherove June 20, 2007 In [.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net), [Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile), [Agile Related](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile-related), [Unit Testing](https://osherove.com/blog/category/unit-testing) **Historical article** · Originally published June 20, 2007; technical details may be outdated. Phill Haack just [released HTTPSimulator](http://haacked.com/archive/2007/06/19/unit-tests-web-code-without-a-web-server-using-httpsimulator.aspx) - a class to help with running tests against a simulated Http Context, to help simulate requests and more without resorting to needing a web server running for the tests. \[via [DNK](http://www.dotnetkicks.com/unittesting/Unit_Test_Web_Code_Without_A_Web_Server_Using_HttpSimulator)\] I like this approach but I also like Phil's comments at the end. Read them. He's right. Also noted: > "originally tried to do all this by using the public APIs. Unfortunately, so many classes are internal or sealed that I had to get my hands dirty and resort to using reflection. Doing so freed me up to finally get certain features working that I could not before." This again goes to the [Testable Object Oriented Design](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2007/02/25/why-you-should-think-about-ootp-object-oriented-testable-programming.aspx) ([TOOD](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2007/02/25/why-you-should-think-about-ootp-object-oriented-testable-programming.aspx)) idea that I wrote about. Testable design might mean two categories: - A Test Enableing\\Disabling design (Sealed classes, high coupling etc. is preventing us from writing tests that simulate or stub out parts of the design) - A testable\\non testable design - meaning you can easily or not easily test the parts in the code you'd like to test. In this case the HTTP related classes are test-disablers in that we cannot easily stub out their features to test something that relies on them. ## More in .NET [All posts in .NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net) - Jun 29, 2007 ### [Israeli .NET Bloggers Update](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/29/israeli-net-bloggers-update.html) - Jun 21, 2007 ### [Blow to open source on VS.NET: VSIP License forbids Open Source](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/21/blow-to-open-source-on-vsnet-vsip-license-forbids-open-sourc.html) - Jun 5, 2007 ### [Running Matlab, Python and Tcl scripts from .NET](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/5/running-matlab-python-and-tcl-scripts-from-net.html) - May 19, 2007 ### [Easier Winform UI Thread Safe Methods with DynamicProxy2 and Osherove.SimpleInterception](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/5/19/easier-winform-ui-thread-safe-methods-with-dynamicproxy2-and.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/