Unit Testing of a .NET Framework application in Visual Studio - MSTest, NUnit & xUnit

ByAnkush Jain| Last Updated On Sunday, Jun 28, 2020

Unit Testing .NET

Disclaimer: I am a consultant at Amazon Web Services, and this is my personal blog. The opinions expressed here are solely mine and do not reflect the views of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Any statements made should not be considered official endorsements or statements by AWS.

I am just documenting all my research and learning that I did to build my concepts regarding the Unit Testing of a .NET Framework application in Visual Studio using various Test Frameworks. I would be glad if this learning will be useful for you as well.

1. Test Frameworks

Below are 3 main Unit Test frameworks for writing unit tests for any .NET Framework application.

MS Test
NUnit
xUnit

2. Creating a Test Project in Visual Studio

By default, for .NET Framework - Visual Studio provides a template for MS Test only. If you want to use NUnit or xUnit Test Frameworks, then you have two options.

Create a Class Library project and install the respective NuGet packages.
Install the NUnit/xUnit project template from Visual Studio Marketplace.

3. Running NUnit & xUnit Unit Tests in Visual Studio Test Explorer (Test Runner)

To run the tests written with MS Test requires no additional setup, you can run them from Visual Studio Test Explorer. But to run the unit tests written with NUnit and xUnit, you have to work a little extra, you just need to install their adapter.

Visual Studio Test Explorer runner can run tests from any unit test framework that has developed an adapter interface for it.

NUnit Adapter Installation (2 Options)

Visual Studio > Go to Tools > Extensions and Updates > Search NUnit Adapter online > Download
Install NuGet package (Search for NUnit Adapter )

Refer to this link - How to choose between Extension and NuGet package?

xUnit Adapter Installation (1 Option)

Install NuGet package (Search for xunit.runner.visualstudio)

Visual Studio Extensions are no longer supported for xUnit.

4. Running Unit Tests from Command Line

MSTest.exe - You can use the MSTest.exe program to run automated tests in a test assembly from a command line. This is a legacy tool.
VSTest.Console.exe - This is the latest offering from Microsoft to run automated unit and coded UI tests from a command line. VSTest.Console.exe is optimized in performance and can be used in place of MSTest.exe.