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Write tests with MSTest

In this article, you will learn about the APIs and conventions used by MSTest to help you write and shape your tests.

Attributes

MSTest uses custom attributes to identify and customize tests.

To help provide a clearer overview of the testing framework, this section organizes the members of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting namespace into groups of related functionality.

Note

Attribute elements, whose names end with "Attribute", can be used with or without "Attribute" at the end. Attributes that have parameterless constructor, can be written with or without parenthesis. The following code examples work identically:

[TestClass()]

[TestClassAttribute()]

[TestClass]

[TestClassAttribute]

MSTest attributes are divided into the following categories:

Assertions

Use the Assert classes of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting namespace to verify specific functionality. A test method exercises the code of a method in your application's code, but it reports the correctness of the code's behavior only if you include Assert statements.

MSTest assertions are divided into the following classes:

The TestContext class

The TestContext class provides contextual information and support for test execution, making it easier to retrieve information about the test run and manipulate aspects of the environment. It's defined in the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting namespace and is available when using the MSTest Framework.

For more information, see Accessing the TestContext object or The TestContext members.

Testing private members

You can generate a test for a private method. This generation creates a private accessor class, which instantiates an object of the PrivateObject class. The PrivateObject class is a wrapper class that uses reflection as part of the private accessor process. The PrivateType class is similar, but is used for calling private static methods instead of calling private instance methods.