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How to Test Private and Protected methods in .NET

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1 Mar 20057 min read 478.3K   2.2K   136  
This article explains some theory behind testing/not testing private methods, and then provides and walks through a downloadable code sample to demonstrate these testing techniques.
using System;

namespace ClassLibrary1
{
	/// <summary>
	/// Summary description for Class1.
	/// </summary>
	public class MyObject
	{
		public MyObject(string strName)
		{
			_strName = strName;
		}

		#region Public Properties

		private string _strName;
		public string Name 
		{
			get 
			{
				return _strName;
			}
		}

		#endregion

		#region Public Methods

		public string MyPublicMethod(string strInput) 
		{
			return  this.Name + ": " + strInput;
		}

		public string PrivateMethodWrapper(string strInput, double dbl) 
		{
			return MyPrivateMethod(strInput, DateTime.Now, dbl);
		}

		#endregion

		#region Protected Methods

		protected string MyProtectedMethod(string strInput, int i32Value) 
		{
			return  this.Name + ": " + strInput + ", " + i32Value.ToString();
		}

		#endregion

		#region Private Methods

		private static string MyPrivateStaticMethod(string strInput, double dbl) 
		{
			return strInput + ", " + dbl.ToString();
		}

		private string MyPrivateMethod(string strInput, DateTime dt, double dbl) 
		{
			return this.Name + ": " + strInput + ", " + dt.ToString() + ", " + dbl.ToString();
		}

		#endregion

	} //end of class

} //end of namespace

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Written By
Web Developer
United States United States
Tim Stall is a Chicago-based technical consultant for Computer Sciences Corporation (www.csc.com), a leading global IT services company. In addition to his expertise in Microsoft.Net development projects and enterprise architecture, Tim's .Net experience includes, writing technical publications, leading internal training, and having MCAD certification. His blog is at http://timstall.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/.

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