Setting HttpContext.Current.Session in a unit test

Question

I have a web service I am trying to unit test. In the service it pulls several values from the HttpContext like so:

 m_password = (string)HttpContext.Current.Session["CustomerId"];
 m_userID = (string)HttpContext.Current.Session["CustomerUrl"];

in the unit test I am creating the context using a simple worker request, like so:

SimpleWorkerRequest request = new SimpleWorkerRequest("", "", "", null, new StringWriter());
HttpContext context = new HttpContext(request);
HttpContext.Current = context;

However, whenever I try to set the values of HttpContext.Current.Session

HttpContext.Current.Session["CustomerId"] = "customer1";
HttpContext.Current.Session["CustomerUrl"] = "customer1Url";

I get null reference exception that says HttpContext.Current.Session is null.

Is there any way to initialize the current session within the unit test?

Answer 1

Try this:

        // MockHttpSession Setup
        var session = new MockHttpSession();

        // MockHttpRequest Setup - mock AJAX request
        var httpRequest = new Mock<HttpRequestBase>();

        // Setup this part of the HTTP request for AJAX calls
        httpRequest.Setup(req => req["X-Requested-With"]).Returns("XMLHttpRequest");

        // MockHttpContextBase Setup - mock request, cache, and session
        var httpContext = new Mock<HttpContextBase>();
        httpContext.Setup(ctx => ctx.Request).Returns(httpRequest.Object);
        httpContext.Setup(ctx => ctx.Cache).Returns(HttpRuntime.Cache);
        httpContext.Setup(ctx => ctx.Session).Returns(session);

        // MockHttpContext for cache
        var contextRequest = new HttpRequest("", "http://localhost/", "");
        var contextResponse = new HttpResponse(new StringWriter());
        HttpContext.Current = new HttpContext(contextRequest, contextResponse);

        // MockControllerContext Setup
        var context = new Mock<ControllerContext>();
        context.Setup(ctx => ctx.HttpContext).Returns(httpContext.Object);

        //TODO: Create new controller here
        //      Set controller's ControllerContext to context.Object

And Add the class:

public class MockHttpSession : HttpSessionStateBase
{
    Dictionary<string, object> _sessionDictionary = new Dictionary<string, object>();
    public override object this[string name]
    {
        get
        {
            return _sessionDictionary.ContainsKey(name) ? _sessionDictionary[name] : null;
        }
        set
        {
            _sessionDictionary[name] = value;
        }
    }

    public override void Abandon()
    {
        var keys = new List<string>();

        foreach (var kvp in _sessionDictionary)
        {
            keys.Add(kvp.Key);
        }

        foreach (var key in keys)
        {
            _sessionDictionary.Remove(key);
        }
    }

    public override void Clear()
    {
        var keys = new List<string>();

        foreach (var kvp in _sessionDictionary)
        {
            keys.Add(kvp.Key);
        }

        foreach(var key in keys)
        {
            _sessionDictionary.Remove(key);
        }
    }
}

This will allow you to test with both session and cache.