Unit Testing Dapper with Inline Queries

Question

I know there are several question similar to mine.

• Dapper: Unit Testing SQL Queries
• Testing Dapper Queries

butI don't think both of above question has clear answer that fit my requirement.

Right now I develop a new WebAPI project and split between WebAPI project and DataAccess technology. I not have a problem test the Controller for WebAPI since I can mock the data access class.

But for DataAccess class that's a different stories, since I'm using Dapper with inline queries in it, I'm a bit confuse how can I test it by using Unit Test. I've asked some of my friends and they prefer to do Integration test instead of Unit Test.

What I want to know is, is it possible to unit test the DataAccess class that use Dapper and Inline queries in it.

Let's say I have a class like this (this is a generic repository class, since a lot of the codes have similar queries differentiate by table name and field)

public abstract class Repository<T> : SyncTwoWayXI, IRepository<T> where T : IDatabaseTable
{
       public virtual IResult<T> GetItem(String accountName, long id)
       {
            if (id <= 0) return null;

            SqlBuilder builder = new SqlBuilder();
            var query = builder.AddTemplate("SELECT /**select**/ /**from**/ /**where**/");

            builder.Select(string.Join(",", typeof(T).GetProperties().Where(p => p.CustomAttributes.All(a => a.AttributeType != typeof(SqlMapperExtensions.DapperIgnore))).Select(p => p.Name)));
            builder.From(typeof(T).Name);
            builder.Where("id = @id", new { id });
            builder.Where("accountID = @accountID", new { accountID = accountName });
            builder.Where("state != 'DELETED'");

            var result = new Result<T>();
            var queryResult = sqlConn.Query<T>(query.RawSql, query.Parameters);

            if (queryResult == null || !queryResult.Any())
            {
                result.Message = "No Data Found";
                return result;
            }

            result = new Result<T>(queryResult.ElementAt(0));
            return result;
       }

       // Code for Create, Update and Delete
  }

And the implementation for above code is like

public class ProductIndex: IDatabaseTable
{
        [SqlMapperExtensions.DapperKey]
        public Int64 id { get; set; }

        public string accountID { get; set; }
        public string userID { get; set; }
        public string deviceID { get; set; }
        public string deviceName { get; set; }
        public Int64 transactionID { get; set; }
        public string state { get; set; }
        public DateTime lastUpdated { get; set; }
        public string code { get; set; }
        public string description { get; set; }
        public float rate { get; set; }
        public string taxable { get; set; }
        public float cost { get; set; }
        public string category { get; set; }
        public int? type { get; set; }
}

public class ProductsRepository : Repository<ProductIndex>
{
   // ..override Create, Update, Delete method
}

Answer 1

I adapted what @Mikhail did because I had issues when adding the OrmLite packages.

internal class InMemoryDatabase
{
    private readonly IDbConnection _connection;

    public InMemoryDatabase()
    {
        _connection = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=:memory:");
    }

    public IDbConnection OpenConnection()
    {
        if (_connection.State != ConnectionState.Open)
            _connection.Open();
        return _connection;
    }

    public void Insert<T>(string tableName, IEnumerable<T> items)
    {
        var con = OpenConnection();

        con.CreateTableIfNotExists<T>(tableName);
        con.InsertAll(tableName, items);
    }
}

I've created a DbColumnAttribute so we can specify a specific column name for a classes property.

public sealed class DbColumnAttribute : Attribute
{
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public DbColumnAttribute(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
    }
}

I added some IDbConnection extensions for the CreateTableIfNotExists and InsertAll methods.

This is very rough so I've not mapped types correctly

internal static class DbConnectionExtensions
{
    public static void CreateTableIfNotExists<T>(this IDbConnection connection, string tableName)
    {
        var columns = GetColumnsForType<T>();
        var fields = string.Join(", ", columns.Select(x => $"[{x.Item1}] TEXT"));
        var sql = $"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS [{tableName}] ({fields})";

        ExecuteNonQuery(sql, connection);
    }

    public static void Insert<T>(this IDbConnection connection, string tableName, T item)
    {
        var properties = typeof(T)
            .GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
            .ToDictionary(x => x.Name, y => y.GetValue(item, null));
        var fields = string.Join(", ", properties.Select(x => $"[{x.Key}]"));
        var values = string.Join(", ", properties.Select(x => EnsureSqlSafe(x.Value)));
        var sql = $"INSERT INTO [{tableName}] ({fields}) VALUES ({values})";

        ExecuteNonQuery(sql, connection);
    }

    public static void InsertAll<T>(this IDbConnection connection, string tableName, IEnumerable<T> items)
    {
        foreach (var item in items)
            Insert(connection, tableName, item);
    }

    private static IEnumerable<Tuple<string, Type>> GetColumnsForType<T>()
    {
        return from pinfo in typeof(T).GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance)
            let attribute = pinfo.GetCustomAttribute<DbColumnAttribute>()
            let columnName = attribute?.Name ?? pinfo.Name
            select new Tuple<string, Type>(columnName, pinfo.PropertyType);
    }

    private static void ExecuteNonQuery(string commandText, IDbConnection connection)
    {
        using (var com = connection.CreateCommand())
        {
            com.CommandText = commandText;
            com.ExecuteNonQuery();
        }
    }

    private static string EnsureSqlSafe(object value)
    {
        return IsNumber(value)
            ? $"{value}"
            : $"'{value}'";
    }

    private static bool IsNumber(object value)
    {
        var s = value as string ?? "";

        // Make sure strings with padded 0's are not passed to the TryParse method.
        if (s.Length > 1 && s.StartsWith("0"))
            return false;

        return long.TryParse(s, out long l);
    }
}

You can still use it the same way as @Mikhail mentions in Step 3.

Answer 2

Here is our approach:

1. First of all, you need to have an abstraction on top of IDbConnection to be able to mock it:

   public interface IDatabaseConnectionFactory
   {
       IDbConnection GetConnection();
   }
   

2. Your repository would get the connection from this factory and execute the Dapper query on it:

   public class ProductRepository
   {
       private readonly IDatabaseConnectionFactory connectionFactory;
   
       public ProductRepository(IDatabaseConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
       {
           this.connectionFactory = connectionFactory;
       }
   
       public Task<IEnumerable<Product>> GetAll()
       {
           return this.connectionFactory.GetConnection().QueryAsync<Product>(
               "select * from Product");
       }
   }
   

3. Your test would create an in-memory database with some sample rows and check how the repository retrieves them:

   [Test]
   public async Task QueryTest()
   {
       // Arrange
       var products = new List<Product>
       {
           new Product { ... },
           new Product { ... }
       };
       var db = new InMemoryDatabase();
       db.Insert(products);
       connectionFactoryMock.Setup(c => c.GetConnection()).Returns(db.OpenConnection());
   
       // Act
       var result = await new ProductRepository(connectionFactoryMock.Object).GetAll();
   
       // Assert
       result.ShouldBeEquivalentTo(products);
   }
   

4. I guess there are multiple ways to implement such in-memory database; we used OrmLite on top of SQLite database:

   public class InMemoryDatabase
   {
       private readonly OrmLiteConnectionFactory dbFactory = new OrmLiteConnectionFactory(":memory:", SqliteOrmLiteDialectProvider.Instance);
   
       public IDbConnection OpenConnection() => this.dbFactory.OpenDbConnection();
   
       public void Insert<T>(IEnumerable<T> items)
       {
           using (var db = this.OpenConnection())
           {
               db.CreateTableIfNotExists<T>();
               foreach (var item in items)
               {
                   db.Insert(item);
               }
           }
       }
   }