Using Random Values For Unit Testing

When writing my unit tests I don’t like to use hard coded fixed values because I either end up using the same values or, because of that, tests may succeed by coincidence.

Over time, I have developed an helper class to generate random values for testing.

namespace PauloMorgado.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting

{

    public static class RandomGenerator

    {

        public static bool Boolean();

        public static string String();

        public static string String(string prefix);

        public static short Int8();

        public static short Int8(short maxValue);

        public static short Int8(short minValue, short maxValue);

        public static short Int16();

        public static short Int16(short maxValue);

        public static short Int16(short minValue, short maxValue);

        public static int Int32();

        public static int Int32(int maxValue);

        public static int Int32(int minValue, int maxValue);

        public static TEnum Enum<TEnum>();

        public static TEnum EnumFlagsWith<TEnum>(TEnum flagsToAdd);

        public static TEnum EnumFlagsWithout<TEnum>(TEnum flagsToRemove);

        public static TEnum Enum<TEnum>(int maxValue);

        public static TEnum Enum<TEnum>(int minValue, int maxValue);

        public static System.Guid Guid();

    }

}

This is something that I would like to find on mock frameworks (like Typemock Isolator, Rhino.Mocks or MoQ).

It’s still a work in progress, but if you want to try it, it’s on my MSDN Code Gallery: Random Generator For Unit Testing