Tommy writes in on my book forum:

"

Hi,
This is an real world example method where I'm confused how to unit test.
------------------8<-------------------
public List<RuleDescription> PrepareCandidates(RuleDescription ruleDescription, RuleType ruleType)
{
List<RuleDescriptionType> ruleDescTypeList = _dataAccessor.GetRuleDescriptionTypeList(ruleType);
List<RuleDescription> ruleDescriptionList = new List<RuleDescription>();
foreach (RuleDescriptionType type in ruleDescTypeList)
{
ruleDescriptionList.AddRange(_dataAccessor.GetRuleDescriptionList(type, ruleDescription.Extent));
}
return ruleDescriptionList;
}
------------------8<-------------------
The classes RuleType, RuleDesctiptionType and RuleDescription contains many attributes which some are other complex objects.
The method does not contain any real logic, just adding data to lists from a database (through the _dataAccessor-object).
Does that mean that I should not unit test this method? Or does it mean that the method is poorly designed? Can or should I mock the _dataAccessor-object?
Lets say that the method returns 5 elements in the list for given parameters (with say 6 importants attributes in each). That's a lot of data to prepare for a test if I want to write expectations for the return value of the method.
I often stumble in to these situations when I'm unit testing where I become overwhelmed by the amount of data I have to insert. I guess I have the wrong approach, but where do I think wrong?
/Tommy

"

Heres my answer:

I would test this method as it does contain some form of logic (a loop).
There are two ways to test it:

• Integration test: Use the real database (data accessor) which forces you to have this data available somewhere and have everything running.
• unit test: That is what I'd go for here I think.
  here is how you could unit test this:

• Stub out the data accessor to return only 1-3 values (remember to write the test a simply as possible to prove your point), and only send in 1-3 values to the method, and assert that you get back an expected collection.
• What you are testing is: that it loops on all of them, and that is asks for data from the accessor
  , so your tests need to vary on the nuber of objects being passed in, and the data returned from the stub accessor (at least two or three tests I would think).
• when these three pass, you can be certain to a degree that the method does what its supposed to do.