Please make PageData.LinkURL virtual – Or why Joe can't sleep

Comments

1. 

   Patrik Akselsson 1 years ago

   I think Joe should have a look inside PageData with reflector. Then he migth be get the idea to write code like:
   

           public PageBuilder WithUrl(string url)
           {
               _page.Property["PageLinkUrl"] = new PropertyString(url);
               return this;
           }
   
2. 

   Joel Abrahamsson 1 years ago

   Patrik,
   
   I talked to Joe and he said that the problem wasn't with setting the value but with retrieving it. That is the SUT should use page.LinkURL to populate a view model. He says he would love ideas on better ways to solve that that doesn't involve stubbing out methods in the presenter or components injected into the presenter though.
3. 

   Patrik Akselsson 1 years ago

   Ah, we managed to get rid of the type initialization exception and a few other wierd errors by doing a lot of funky stuff in a EPiTestHelper class.
   
   I do think that the fact that a EPiTestHelper is needed at all to work with PageReferences and PageData is a bit of an issue though. It kind of sends a signal that the CMS vendor is not particularly interested in unit testing.
4. 

   Anders Hattestad 1 years ago

   I agree that most methods/properties should be virtual. Framework like episerver should make life easier for us programmers.
   
   But for testing, LinkURL have some issues (language as one of them), and the test should aim to find these. So to rewrite the LinkURL property would not solve this.
   
5. 

   Joel Abrahamsson 1 years ago

   Anders,
   
   In a integration testing scenario which is what I guess you're thinking about it's relevant to test the full interaction, including what's going on in LinkURL but not when it comes to unit testing.
   
   In the context of unit testing where we only want to test a single unit of code it's important to be able to isolate that unit from it's dependencies, in this case the logic in LinkURL.
   
   For instance the logic in my presenter is that it should get the LinkURL from the page, what that URL is is irrelevant in the context of testing that logic.
   
   I definitely think a framework should allow us to isolate our code from it's implementations and I know EPiServer is working on that when it comes to DataFactory. However, they will never be able to add interfaces for everything (and I don't think I would want an IPageData) so defaulting to virtual would be a simple solution.
6. 

   Anders Hattestad 1 years ago

   I see your point, and to unit test some code maybe the dependecy properties isn't a issue. But if you get the wrong links it is a issue in that part of the code :)
   
   To add virtual to most methods/properties is in my option a must in a framework. Make stuff a lot easier to modify and test.
   
   But the best solution in this example would to let the code inside LinkUrl to be sort of like the code for Property[xx]. So we can modify the behaiver of the code, and you could make your own dummy implementasion of LinkUrl to return whatever link you want