Table Of Contents

Introduction

It has been a while since I wrote an article here at CodeProject, but that does not mean I have not been busy. Far from it, I have been very busy digesting new things (at least new for me), and reading a lot. In fact the book I just finished reading (Martin Fowler's 'Domain Specific Languages') kind of inspired this article.

I have basically always had an interest in the more obscure elements of software engineering, sure I like doing pretty stuff with WPF, however I find myself going back to my computer science roots a bit more these days, and wanting to explore some of the weirder areas, and let me tell you Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are a pretty weird (yet powerfu) place.

If one were to follow Martin Fowlers thoughts, the DSL world would be broken down into two parts:

Internal DSLs: These are DSLs that are meant to be used by software engineers/developers and should not be shown to end users. As such they may comprise some fairly technical syntax. External DSLs: These are DSLs that are intended to be used by end users, and as such can be expected to be described in a common language that the end user and the software engineers who must parse the DSL text both understand.

Now let me just tell you that Martin Fowler's 'Domain Specific Languages' book is about 600 pages long, and goes into way too much detail for me to even try and condense into a single article. So we will not be going into External DSLs at all in this article, rather we shall be concentrating on a sub set of Internal DSL tools/trickery.

I will start this article by going through a few common ideas/techniques used for developing internal DSLs, and then I will go through a simple example, and then we will proceed to go through the uber example.

Semantic Model

Put simply this is the model that's populated by a DSL. All the DSL does is provide a readable way of populating that model.

Martin Fowler has this pretty good thing to say about semantic models in regards to a StateMachine DSL that he has as part of his book.

Looking at it from this point of view, the DSL merely acts as a mechanism for expressing how the model is configured. Much of the benefits of using this approach comes from the model rather than the DSLs. The fact that I can easily configure a new state machine for a customer is a property of the model, not the DSL. The fact that I can make a change to a controller at runtime, without compiling, is a feature of the model, not the DSL. The fact I’m reusing code across multiple installations of controllers is a property of the model, not the DSL. Hence the DSL is merely a thin facade over the model.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1592379&seqNum=4

Builders

By using separate classes that construct our semantic model we are able to keep our semantic model clean of any DSL parsing code, which illustrates a good separation between parsing code and the eventual semantic model which a given DSL represents.

I won't say too much about builders here, as they are easier to understand with an example, all that they are really, is little helper classes that have the ability to create a correctly populated semantic model. Like I say you will see a demo of this is the examples associated with this article.

Parser Tree

Parser trees are an interesting thing that can be used in the creation of internal DSLs. So just what are parser trees exactly? Well the way to easily grasp what these are, is by thinking about the ability to pass around a tree of code expressed as a data structure.

Parser trees are a fairly novel thing, and not all languages support this concept. Luckily .NET has the Expression namespace which may be used for this exact purpose. Just for completeness the Expression classes were introduced to allow LINQ to SQL/EF and IQueryProvider s to translate code passed around as data structures into SQL statements, but that is neither here nor there, all that is important is that .NET supports the ability to pass around code as data structures, which allows us to pass around strongly typed code as if it were a regular data type.

The most widely used/seen/popular example of this might be to extract a property name from a LambdaExpression which would be done as follows:

public static PropertyInfo GetProperty<T>(Expression<Func<T, Object>> propertyExpression) { var lambda = propertyExpression as LambdaExpression; MemberExpression memberExpression; if (lambda.Body is UnaryExpression) { var unaryExpression = lambda.Body as UnaryExpression; memberExpression = unaryExpression.Operand as MemberExpression; } else { memberExpression = lambda.Body as MemberExpression; } var propertyInfo = memberExpression.Member as PropertyInfo; return propertyInfo; }

Which we might use like this, where this is commonly used with

INotifyPropertyChanged

implementing objects:

PropertyInfo prop = <GetProperty<Person>(x = > x.Age) <

Method Chaining

Method chaining is a common technique that can be used where each method would return an object (which is most cases would be the current object itself OR a builder object that builds certain parts of the semantic model), which allows the calls to be chained together into a single statement.

Fluent Interfaces

I found a nice post on Ayende blogs (and he has his own DSL book too, so he can be trusted don't worry) that describes what I would consider to be the essence of what fluent interfaces are and how they compare to method chaining. Here is what Ayende said:

Method chaining is something that you would certainly use in the a fluent interface, but that is like saying that you need to use interfaces when you build a plug-in framework. The fact that you are using something doesn't mean that what you do is only that something.



Fluent interfaces are different than merely method chaining because they allow you to express your intent in the domain terms and allows you to get more readable code. Method chaining, operator overloading, nasty generics tricks are all part of that, certainly, but the end result is much more than just a simple method chain.

Ayende also shows a nice comparison of method chaining and fluent interfaces, here is what his blog said

This is method chaining:

string user = new StringBuilder() .Append( " Name: " ) .Append(user.Name) .AppendLine() .Append( " Email: " ) .Append(user.Email) .AppendLine() .ToString();

And this is a Fluent interface:

return new Finder<Order>( Where.Order.User == CurrentUser && ( Where.Order.TotalCost > Money.Dollars( 150 ) || Where.Order.OrderLines.Count > 15 ), OrderBy.Order.CreatedAt ).List();

I urge you to read Ayendes blog for the full details : http://ayende.com/blog/2639/fluent-interfaces-method-chaining.

Knowing When to End

One of the major problems in working with method chaining is how to preserve the correct sequence of calls and how to know when the chain is actually complete. So how does one know when to complete the chain, and thus return a populated semantic model?

Probably the easiest way to deal with this dilemma is to include some sort of "Ending" method that signifies the end of the chain.

Progressive Interfaces

Another issue when working with method chains is that you may always be returning the current object which may allow the user to call to many methods/the wrong methods, in the wrong places. One common technique in dealing with this is to return interfaces which dictate what methods/properties etc etc are valid at that point in the chain. This technique it called progressive interfaces (at least that is what Martin Fowler likes to call it)

By using progressive interfaces, the chain of methods that may be called by the calling code, will be limited to those methods exposed by the interface at that point in the chain.

Simple Example

This first simple example is really easy, and should demonstrate several of the techniques we just discussed, for example you will see examples of Method Chaining / Fluent Interfaces / Builders / Semantic Model and we will know when to end the chain.

Scenario

So before we look at the demo code, let's just set the scene of what we are trying to do. I used to be into creating electronic music, where I had a studio filled with various bits of electronic equipment, so I thought that a DSL that creates a simple music studio might be fun. The studio is very simple and contains only 2 things

A single mixing desk Any number of samplers

Simple Example: Semantic Model

In terms of a Semantic model this is what we will be trying to create. I could explain this further, but I think most of us can/should understand a class diagram

Simple Example: Builders

As previously stated by using helper builder classes we are able to separate out the DSL building / parsing code from our semantic model, which is a good thing.

StudioBuilder

For this scenario the first place we need to start is the top level builder, which is the builder that will build new Studio objects for us. This is shown below.

public class StudioBuilder { private MixingDeskBuilder currentMixingDesk; private SamplerBuilder currentSampler; private List<Sampler> loadedSamplers = new List<Sampler>(); public static StudioBuilder Studio() { return new StudioBuilder(); } public StudioBuilder MixingDesk() { currentMixingDesk = new MixingDeskBuilder(); return this ; } public StudioBuilder Channels( int channels) { currentMixingDesk.Channels = channels; return this ; } public SamplerBuilder Sampler() { if (currentSampler != null ) loadedSamplers.Add(currentSampler.GetValue()); currentSampler = new SamplerBuilder( this ); return currentSampler; } public Studio End() { return GetValue(); } private Studio GetValue() { return new Studio(currentMixingDesk.GetValue(), Samplers); } private List<Sampler> Samplers { get { List<Sampler> samplers = new List<Sampler>(); samplers.AddRange(loadedSamplers); if (currentSampler != null ) samplers.Add(currentSampler.GetValue()); return samplers; } } }

There are a number of things to note here, such as

The use of context variables that are used to store the current context of the DSL as it's being constructed. This can be seen by the currentMixingDesk and currentSampler variables. These ensure we are manipulating the correct object whilst working with the DSL creation

and variables. These ensure we are manipulating the correct object whilst working with the DSL creation The use of method chaining, see the MixingDesk() method for an example

method for an example It does exhibit a fluent interface, in that the method names have been chosen to express their intent to the user to assist in buildng the DSL

Their is a way to signal the end of the chain, see the End() method for an example

MixingDeskBuilder

So now that we have a top level builder in place, lets shift our focus slightly to the MixingDeskBuilder . Remember there is only one of these allowed in this demo DSL, as such the buider for this is very simple. Here it is:

public sealed class MixingDeskBuilder { private const int DEFAULT_CHANNELS = 10 ; private int channels = DEFAULT_CHANNELS; public int Channels { get { return channels; } set { channels = value ; } } public MixingDesk GetValue() { return new MixingDesk(channels); } }

There is not much to say about this one to be honest.

SamplerBuilder

So next we move on to look at the SamplerBuilder . Remember there can be any number one of these allowed in this demo DSL, as such the builder for this needs a way of allowing more than one of these to be created. The way this is achieved is to take a reference to the parent StudioBuilder and to have a Sampler() method that simply calls the parents

Sampler()

SamplerBuilder

method that will add a newto its collection.

public class SamplerBuilder { private StudioBuilder parent; private int hardDiskSize; private string model; public SamplerBuilder(StudioBuilder parent) { this .parent = parent; } public SamplerBuilder DiskSize( int hardDiskSize) { this .hardDiskSize = hardDiskSize; return this ; } public SamplerBuilder Model( string model) { this .model = model; return this ; } public SamplerBuilder Sampler() { return parent.Sampler(); } public Studio End() { return parent.End(); } public Sampler GetValue() { return new Sampler(hardDiskSize, model); } }

Simple Example: Usage

OK, so to use this simple demo example we would simply do something like this:

Studio studio = StudioBuilder.Studio() .MixingDesk() .Channels( 10 ) .Sampler() .DiskSize( 1000 ) .Model( " Akai 3000" ) .Sampler() .DiskSize( 1000 ) .Model( " Emu ultra" ) .End();

Which when run will produce something like this

Uber Example

Before we get started with this section, I need to also give you a bit more context about how this article came about. So around the time that I was 1/2 way through Martin Fowlers 'Domain Specific Languages' book, I was also debugging some of my code at work, where I was in the middle of a test case where I was using the fabulous Moq library, which is by far my favorite mocking framework, and 2 things happened

I had an issue with a callback that I had setup with my mock, which was not working, and I started debugging my code, and I noticed this thing which I immediately recognized as a Castle dynamic proxy. I kind of had a eureka moment with Moq where I was like, Aha that's how they do it. Truth is they mention this on their home page but I have never read that page, as Moq has never really gone wrong for me, so I never looked. I looked at the Moq configuration and noticed it was doing lots of the stuff that Martin Fowlers 'Domain Specific Languages' book was talking about. For example Moq uses the following DSL techniques:

Method Chaining

Fluent Interfaces

Progressive Interfaces

Parser Tree

Massive kudos to the Moq team I say, and how very timely I also say. True timing what you say

So without further ado, I wondering if I could write something like Moq from scratch using some of my new found DSL knowledge. It took me a while but I have managed to make a working Moq clone. I should point out that I did this without looking at their code at all, which I am sure you will be able to tell if you compare the two. Now that I have finished I obviously checked out there code and theirs is like well um just plain better than mine actually.

Now before anyone mentions the dreaded word "Plagiarism" I actually contacted the main author of Moq, that's Kzu, and told him what I was doing well before I wrote this article and he gave me the ok. In case anyone is interested here is our email chain. (click the image below to see larger version)

So there you go, I have Kzus blessing.

One other thing I should point out is that my simple

Moq clone presented here is just that, it is simple, and is no where near as polished as Moq, so anyone thinking of trying out my simple demo here for their mocking needs, forget it, it was just done for laughs really, use Moq.

That is not to say I am not happy with what I have done here, which I kind of am actually, as it does most of the main things that Moq does in terms of DSL capabilities, which was after all, was the main reason I tried to write this simple Moq clone. So yeah I am happy with how this worked out for sure.

Just for completeness here are some of reasons why you would use Moq over my simple take on it, which as I say, was more about just having a go at creating the DSL / Method Chaining / Fluent Interface / Progressive Interfaces / Parser Tree syntax that Moq uses.

Anyway we digress, here is why you need to use Moq and not my simple example:

I only support mocking interfaces

support mocking interfaces I do not support mocking of classes

support mocking of classes I do not support nested mocks

support nested mocks I do not deal with ref variables

Anyway now that we have all that no technical speil out of the way, let's continue on with the 2nd example, which is my simple Moq clone, which I have dubbed "The Uber Example"

I should also point out that although simpler than Moq, my simple Moq clone actually does work, which you can see by running the demo code associated with this article.

Uber Example: The General Idea

As I have just stated what I have created is a very simple mocking framework that uses an internal DSL to build up a mock object, that can be used in place of a real object. I have also stated that my simple DSL allows a subset of what normal mocking frameworks produce, but I am not worried about that, what I am worried about is showing you all the techniques involved with how I got there and some of the DSL like syntax that you could use in your own DSLs.

So now that we know that we are creating a DSL to create a mocking framework, what sort of things could we expect to see?

Well if we consider what sort of things a typical object allows we could conceivably have an initial list of the following

Mocking methods

Mocking properties

Raising events

Throwing exceptions

So that is the sort of thing we might want to include in our DSL/Semantic Model. However as we look into each of these areas in more detail we can start to think about the way in which a normal (ie non mocked object) would operate. It could potentially allow all sorts of behaviour such as:

Throwing an error in a property setter

Only accepting certain inputs

Expect to only be called a certain number of times

You get the idea, so considering these things we can develop our DSL. What I have chosen to do was imitate what I would consider to be a very well known clever existing API (ie Moq), but you can see how these extra concerns could influence your DSL design.

Uber Example: Semantic Model

In some ways the semantic model for this is very simple it just comes down to

Methods

Properties

Which is actually all that we can create using the DSL. What makes the semantic model more interesting is that methods may needs to do things like throw Exception s, or raise events. So these considerations and the ability to deal with these concerns then become part of the semantic model.

Uber Example: Common Techniques

This section will outline common techniques that are used throughout the "uber example" and these will provide the building blocks for the subsequent sections

Common Techniques: Proxying

As this DSL is all about mocking, it should come as no surprise that there is an internally held proxy object, which is used instead of the real object. You may ask how this proxy comes about? Who creates it?

There are many free open source frameworks for dealing with dynamically created proxies, in fact it is not that hard to come up with a simple one using the .NET Remoting APIs. That said I have chosen to use Castle Windsor, which is a tried and tested tool, I get it you could say.

So yeah we will be using a Castle Windsor proxy for the mock object generated within this Uber Example DSL.

Common Techniques: Interception

To do the types of thing that the Uber Example is trying to do, we are obviously into a quite niche domain, where we expect things to be returned from a method when we do X, or we expect that when property Y gets set that its value will be Z. This is all quite specific to the way a real object would work, but we don't want to write real objects to deal with our wishes, what we want to do is write some DSL code that specifies the behaviour, such as:

When Method X is called return List<Foo>

So how do we go about that? Well luckily, there are a number of frameworks on the market that allow us to do this. This is really just Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) when you think about it, and how does AOP work? Well, in .NET land, it usually works via method interception, but how do we do that?

Well, like I say, there are many free Open Source frameworks for doing AOP with .NET. For this article, I have chosen to use Castle Windsor, which uses a technique called interception, which is made possible by the use of Interceptors.

Quite simply, Interceptors allow you to hook into the method calling pipeline and decide what return values/parameters etc., should be passed (if at all) to the base method implementation.

This is a very powerful technique. By using Interceptors, we are able to pretty much deal with any of the mocking requirements. In an Interceptor we can do the following:

Do a callback for a method being called

Increment a counter for the number of times a method has been called

Work our whether a method call was valid

Raise an Exception if we were asked to, during a particular method/property call

if we were asked to, during a particular method/property call Raise an event during a particular method/property call

This technique is used throughout this Uber Example, where the following Interceptors are used:

Common Techniques: Finding Event Names

The actual raising of events is a tricky beast to deal with, and was one of the most challenging aspects of all of the work I did for this article. Why is the raising event(s) code so difficult you may ask? It is down to the fact that I wish to be able to identify the event to raise in a strongly formed way, that is I do not wish to pass around magic strings.

That is the problem really, but why is that an issue?

Well, in .NET, the only thing you can do with an event in an external class that makes use of the event is to add or remove handlers using the += or -= operators. So how by simply using these operators can we obtain the actual event name?

This turned out to be quite a difficult problem, and one that did not come to me straight away. The following diagram illustrates what I managed to come up with eventually.

In words what happens is that we accept a delegate that takes T , which just happens to be the same type as the mock object we are building. So that part I hope is OK. The next thing we do is create a extremely short lived Castle dynamic proxy of type T , which will only be used to analyze calls made to it via Castles interception feature that only serves to grab information about what methods/events etc., were called on the proxy. I have called this the

PredictiveInterceptor

So we now have a proxy object in place and a

PredictiveInterceptor

Action<T>

which will store methods (and event add_XXX/remove_XXX are really methods) invoked on the proxy. OK, cool, so now all we do is call the original delegate (passing in the short lived proxy we created and then find out what methods were called on it). It's that simple.

It did take me a while to come up with that one, anyway that is essentially how this Uber Example works when raising events.

Uber Example: Properties

Obviously since we are dealing with a DSL for creating mock objects, we are going to have to provide some way of dealing with setting up properties for our mock using our DSL, but just what sort of thing should we allow for.

Properties can accept values and return values, and can throw Exception(s) and also raise events, and can be called once, twice n-many times of never. As such here is what I came up with that the DSL needs to support for properties:

We need a way of setting up what values a property should return

We need a way that a Setter should throw an Exception . I feel it would be quite strange for a Getter to throw Exception s (ok it might but it would be rare)

. I feel it would be quite strange for a Getter to throw s (ok it might but it would be rare) We need a way that a Setter can raise an event. I feel it would be extremely strange for a Getter to raise an event

So that is what our DSL will support. Now let's continue to have a look at how this is achieved.

Properties: Returning Values

We can setup a property using the SetupProperty method (which is part of the method chaining methods of the Mock class) as follows:

public IPropertyData<T> SetupProperty(Expression<Func<T, Object>> property) { PropertyData<T> propertyData = GetPropertyFromExpression(property); allPropertiesForProxy.Add(propertyData); return propertyData; }

And here is how you would set up a property with a return value directly on the mock object:

public IPropertyData<T> SetupProperty(Expression<Func<T, Object>> property, object returnValue) { PropertyData<T> propertyData = GetPropertyFromExpression(property); propertyData.Returns(returnValue); allPropertiesForProxy.Add(propertyData); return propertyData; }

In both these cases, the following helper method is used to create a new PropertyData<T> builder.

private PropertyData<T> GetPropertyFromExpression(Expression<Func<T, Object>> property) { if (property is LambdaExpression) { PropertyData<T> propertyData = new PropertyData<T>(); ((IInterceptablePropertyData)propertyData).Proxy = proxy; propertyData.Mock = this ; ((IInterceptablePropertyData)propertyData).Property = ExpressionHelper.GetProperty(property); return propertyData; } throw new InvalidOperationException( " Could not create Setup for this property" ); }

Where we also use this utility code to obtain the PropertyInfo from the original Expression<Func<T, Object>> .

public static PropertyInfo GetProperty<T>(Expression<Func<T, Object>> propertyExpression) { var lambda = propertyExpression as LambdaExpression; MemberExpression memberExpression; if (lambda.Body is UnaryExpression) { var unaryExpression = lambda.Body as UnaryExpression; memberExpression = unaryExpression.Operand as MemberExpression; } else { memberExpression = lambda.Body as MemberExpression; } var propertyInfo = memberExpression.Member as PropertyInfo; return propertyInfo; }

The returned type is PropertyData<T> , which is a property builder that is used to configure the rest of the property level data for the mock.

By using the PropertyData<T> builder we can also setup a return value using the Returns method, which we can see shown below:

internal sealed class PropertyData<T> : IPropertyData<T>, IInterceptablePropertyData, ISupportExceptions { private object returnValue; public IPropertyData<T> Returns( object returnValue) { this .returnValue = returnValue; return this ; } }

And here is how you might use the DSL fragment in your own code:

Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase1 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase1.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, 1 ); Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase1. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase2 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase2.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).Returns( 3 ); Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase2. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase3 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase3.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty); mockPropCase3. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase3. Object .IntGetSetProperty));

Properties: Throwing Exceptions

Having the ability to throw an Exception from a property probably only makes sense in a Setter of a property, after all who wants an Exception thrown each time they try and read a property. So how is this achieved? Well, it turns out this is very simple. We simply have a DSL fragment that accepts either a generic Type for the Exception to throw, which is created using Activator.CreateInstance , or we accept a pre-populated Exception object.

In either case, we store the Exception against the PropertyData<T> builder and we make use of this Exception in the PropertyInterceptor via the use of an ISupportExceptions interface that the PropertyData<T> builder class also implements.

internal sealed class PropertyData<T> : IPropertyData<T>, IInterceptablePropertyData, ISupportExceptions { private Exception exceptionToThrow; public PropertyData() { eventsToRaise = new List<EventWrapper>(); setHasBeenCalled = 0 ; getHasBeenCalled = 0 ; exceptionToThrow = null ; } public IPropertyData<T> ThrowsOnSet<TEx>() where TEx : Exception { exceptionToThrow = (Exception)Activator.CreateInstance<TEx>(); return this ; } public IPropertyData<T> ThrowsOnSet(Exception ex) { exceptionToThrow = ex; return this ; } #region ISupportExceptions members Exception ISupportExceptions.ExceptionToThrow { get { return exceptionToThrow; } set { exceptionToThrow = value ; } } bool ISupportExceptions.HasException { get { return exceptionToThrow != null ; } } #endregion }

We are then able to check if an Exception should be raised when we are setting a property within the PropertyInterceptor . As I have stated on numerous occasions, I am using Castle Interceptors. Here are the relevant parts of the PropertyInterceptor .

internal class PropertyInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptablePropertyData> allPropertiesForProxy = parentMock.AllPropertiesForProxy; string invocationPropertyName = invocation.Method.Name.Substring( 4 ); invocationPropertyName.Replace( " ()" , " " ); List<IInterceptablePropertyData> propertyDataItems = allPropertiesForProxy.Where(x = > x.Property.Name == invocationPropertyName).ToList(); if (!propertyDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); if (propertyDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was " + " found more than once for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); IInterceptablePropertyData propertyData = propertyDataItems. Single (); if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " set_" )) { propertyData.RaiseEvents(); ExceptionHelper.ThrowException((ISupportExceptions)propertyData); .... .... } .... .... .... } }

And here is how you might use the DSL fragment in your own code:

Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase4 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase4.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).ThrowsOnSet( new InvalidOperationException( " this is from the mock property setter" )); try { mockPropCase4. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase4b.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).ThrowsOnSet<InvalidOperationException>(); try { mockPropCase4b. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); }

Properties: Raising Events

Now that I have gone through the basics of how an event name is deduced (see Common Techniques: Finding Event Names) in a strongly typed manner, let's concentrate on looking at how the property building DSL fragment is able to actually deal with events.

It starts with the ability to accept the event in a strongly typed manner, which we discussed above, but for completeness, here are the methods that accept a standard event arguments signature to raise an event, and also a custom event argument signature:

public IPropertyData<T> RaiseEventOnSet(Action<T> eventToRaise, EventArgs eventArgs) { MemberInfo member = eventRaiserHelper.GetEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, proxy, eventToRaise); eventsToRaise.Add( new EventWrapper(member, new object [] { eventArgs }, false )); return this ; } public IPropertyData<T> RaiseEventOnSet(Action<T> eventToRaise, params object [] args) { MemberInfo member = eventRaiserHelper.GetEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, proxy, eventToRaise); eventsToRaise.Add( new EventWrapper(member, args, true )); return this ; }

Where this really just uses the following EventHelper code:

public class EventRaiserHelper<T> { public MemberInfo GetEvent(IEventRaisingAgent eventRaisingAgent, object proxy, Action<T> eventToRaise) { PredictiveAnalyzer<T> predictiveAnalyzer = new PredictiveAnalyzer<T>(proxy, eventToRaise, AnalyzerType.Event); predictiveAnalyzer.Analyze(); return predictiveAnalyzer.Invocation; } .... .... .... .... }

Where this is the full code for the PredictiveAnalyser :

public interface IPredictiveAnalyzer { MemberInfo Invocation { get ; set ; } } public class PredictiveAnalyzer<T> : IPredictiveAnalyzer { private object existingProxy; private Action<T> eventToRaise; private AnalyzerType analyzerType; public PredictiveAnalyzer( object existingProxy, Action<T> eventToRaise, AnalyzerType analyzerType) { this .existingProxy = existingProxy; this .eventToRaise = eventToRaise; this .analyzerType = analyzerType; } public void Analyze() { ProxyGenerator generator = new ProxyGenerator(); IInterceptor[] interceptors = new IInterceptor[] { new PredictiveInterceptor( existingProxy, (IPredictiveAnalyzer) this , analyzerType) }; T predictiveProxy = (T)generator.CreateInterfaceProxyWithoutTarget( typeof (T), interceptors); eventToRaise(predictiveProxy); } public MemberInfo Invocation { get ; set ; } }

So that gets us a name to store for the event which we store in a List<EventWrapper> object for later use.

But how about raising these actual events? All we have done at the moment is say that when property XYZ setter is called, we want to raise event ABC in a strongly typed way. But how do we actually call the correct event invocation list callback handlers when the property value does change?

To understand that part we need to recall that there is actually a EventInterceptor at work which is enforced for the actual mock object the DSL is creating. Here is that code, it can be seen that we store the callback delegates against an IEventRaisingAgent (this is the actual mock object the DSL is building):

internal enum HandlerOperation { Add, Remove } internal class EventInterceptor { private static Object locker = new Object (); public static void Intercept(IEventRaisingAgent parentMock, IInvocation invocation, HandlerOperation handlerOperation) { lock (locker) { string rawEventName = invocation.Method.Name; string eventName = invocation.Method.Name.Substring(invocation.Method.Name.IndexOf( " _" ) + 1 ); switch (handlerOperation) { case HandlerOperation.Add: parentMock.AllEventsForProxy.Add(eventName, new EventData(eventName)); parentMock.AllEventsForProxy[eventName].AddHandler((Delegate)invocation.Arguments[ 0 ]); break ; case HandlerOperation.Remove: parentMock.AllEventsForProxy[eventName].RemoveHandler((Delegate)invocation.Arguments[ 0 ]); break ; } } return ; } }

So that is how we have a knowledge of what event callback delegates to call. But how do we actually call them? Well, for that piece of the puzzle, we need to jump back into the PropertyInterceptor , whose most relevant parts for events are shown here:

internal class PropertyInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptablePropertyData> allPropertiesForProxy = parentMock.AllPropertiesForProxy; string invocationPropertyName = invocation.Method.Name.Substring( 4 ); invocationPropertyName.Replace( " ()" , " " ); List<IInterceptablePropertyData> propertyDataItems = allPropertiesForProxy.Where(x = > x.Property.Name == invocationPropertyName).ToList(); if (!propertyDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); if (propertyDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); IInterceptablePropertyData propertyData = propertyDataItems. Single (); if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " set_" )) { propertyData.RaiseEvents(); .... .... .... .... } .... .... .... } }

It can be seen that this simply calls the DSL stored PropertyData<T>.RaiseEvents() method for the current property invocation. So all we need to do to complete this wicked web is have a look at the PropertyData<T>.RaiseEvents() , which is as shown below:

void IInterceptablePropertyData.RaiseEvents() { foreach (EventWrapper eventWrapper in eventsToRaise) { eventRaiserHelper.RaiseEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, eventWrapper.IsCustomEvent, proxy, eventWrapper.Args, eventWrapper.Member); } }

Where this calls the EventHelper.RaiseEvent() method which looks like this:

public class EventRaiserHelper<T> { public void RaiseEvent(IEventRaisingAgent eventRaisingAgent, bool isCustomEvent, object proxy, object [] args, MemberInfo member) { List<object> delegateArgs = new List<object>(); if (!isCustomEvent) { delegateArgs.Add(proxy); } delegateArgs.AddRange(args); if (eventRaisingAgent.AllEventsForProxy.ContainsKey(member.Name)) { foreach (Delegate handler in eventRaisingAgent.AllEventsForProxy[member.Name].InvocationList) { handler.Method.Invoke(handler.Target, delegateArgs.ToArray()); } } } }

And that is how the DSL supports raising mocks. Easy, right?

Properties: Verification

Whilst working with the mock object that this Uber Example DSL builds, it is not inconceivable that one may want to know how many times a certain property is called. This is called Verification in this Uber example.

Here is the basic idea:

Every time we see a property getter/setter called, we increment an internal counter within the mock object that the DSL represents At the end of using the mock object created by the DSL (say in a UnitTest), we can verify the property

Here is the relevant code from the property builder PropertyData<T> :

internal sealed class PropertyData<T> : IPropertyData<T>, IInterceptablePropertyData, ISupportExceptions { private int setCallLimit; private int setHasBeenCalled; private int getCallLimit; private int getHasBeenCalled; public PropertyData() { .... .... setHasBeenCalled = 0 ; getHasBeenCalled = 0 ; .... .... } int IInterceptablePropertyData.SetHasBeenCalled { get { return setHasBeenCalled; } set { setHasBeenCalled = value ; } } int IInterceptablePropertyData.GetHasBeenCalled { get { return getHasBeenCalled; } set { getHasBeenCalled = value ; } } }

And here is how the PropertyInterceptor parts work that deal with storing the number of times a property invocation occurs:

internal class PropertyInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptablePropertyData> allPropertiesForProxy = parentMock.AllPropertiesForProxy; string invocationPropertyName = invocation.Method.Name.Substring( 4 ); invocationPropertyName.Replace( " ()" , " " ); List<IInterceptablePropertyData> propertyDataItems = allPropertiesForProxy.Where(x = > x.Property.Name == invocationPropertyName).ToList(); if (!propertyDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); if (propertyDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); IInterceptablePropertyData propertyData = propertyDataItems. Single (); if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " set_" )) { .... .... .... propertyData.SetHasBeenCalled++; } if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " get_" )) { .... .... .... propertyData.GetHasBeenCalled++; } .... .... .... } }

So you can see the process is pretty simple really, we just store the number of times that we want a property getter/setter called directly on the property builder, and the PropertyInterceptor verifies that the actual number of getter/setter calls to a particular property is also stored against the property builder.

And here is some user code that deals with how to perform verification using the DSL:

Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase6 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase6.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty); mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; bool propOk = mockPropCase6.VerifyProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, SimpleMock.Core.Properties.PropertyType.Setter, WasCalled.ThisManyTimes( 2 )); string propMsg = propOk ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(propMsg); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase6b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase6b.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).Returns( 2 ); int valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; propOk = mockPropCase6b.VerifyProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, SimpleMock.Core.Properties.PropertyType.Getter, WasCalled.ThisManyTimes( 2 )); propMsg = propOk ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(propMsg);

It can be seen above that we are able to use methods from the WasCalled class to specify the call limit for verification, where the full WasCalled class is as follows:

public class WasCalled { public static int Once() { return 1 ; } public static int Never() { return 0 ; } public static int ThisManyTimes( int thisManyTimes) { return thisManyTimes; } }

The user code shown above calls the overall mock object's VerifyProperty method which looks like this:

public bool VerifyProperty(Expression<Func<T, Object>> property, PropertyType propertyType, int callLimit) { PropertyData<T> propertyData = GetPropertyFromExpression(property); IInterceptablePropertyData interceptablePropertyData = allPropertiesForProxy.Where( x = > x.Property.Name == ((IInterceptablePropertyData)propertyData).Property.Name).SingleOrDefault(); if (interceptablePropertyData != null ) { bool results = false ; switch (propertyType) { case PropertyType.Getter: results = interceptablePropertyData.GetHasBeenCalled < = callLimit; break ; case PropertyType.Setter: results = interceptablePropertyData.SetHasBeenCalled < = callLimit; break ; } return results; } else throw new MockException( " There was a problem finding the property you specified" ); }

Properties: Interception

As I have stated on numerous occasions, I am using Castle Interceptors. For completeness, here is the full listing of the PropertyInterceptor :

internal class PropertyInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptablePropertyData> allPropertiesForProxy = parentMock.AllPropertiesForProxy; string invocationPropertyName = invocation.Method.Name.Substring( 4 ); invocationPropertyName.Replace( " ()" , " " ); List<IInterceptablePropertyData> propertyDataItems = allPropertiesForProxy.Where(x = > x.Property.Name == invocationPropertyName).ToList(); if (!propertyDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); if (propertyDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Property '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocationPropertyName)); IInterceptablePropertyData propertyData = propertyDataItems. Single (); if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " set_" )) { propertyData.RaiseEvents(); ExceptionHelper.ThrowException((ISupportExceptions)propertyData); propertyData.ReturnValue = invocation.Arguments[ 0 ]; propertyData.SetHasBeenCalled++; } if (invocation.Method.Name.StartsWith( " get_" )) { propertyData.GetHasBeenCalled++; } invocation.ReturnValue = propertyData.ReturnValue; } }

This deals with the following concerns when dealing with properties:

Raising any event registered for the property (if it is a setter) being invocated

Throwing an exception registered for the property (if it is a setter) being invocated

Maintaining the count of number of times the property getter/setter have been called

Returning the requested return value

Properties: Demonstration

To illustrate all these features, let's consider the following user DSL code:

class Program { static void Main( string [] args) { #region Property Tests #region Setup with Return values Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase1 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase1.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, 1 ); Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase1. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase2 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase2.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).Returns( 3 ); Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase2. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase3 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase3.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty); mockPropCase3. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase3. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); #endregion #region Throw Exception on setter Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase4 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase4.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).ThrowsOnSet( new InvalidOperationException( " this is from the mock property setter" )); try { mockPropCase4. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase4b.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).ThrowsOnSet<InvalidOperationException>(); try { mockPropCase4b. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } #endregion #region Event Raising on Setter Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase5 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase5.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).RaiseEventOnSet(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); mockPropCase5. Object .Changed += new EventHandler<EventArgs>(Object_Changed); mockPropCase5. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase5. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase5b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase5b.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).RaiseEventOnSet(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 99 , 101 ); mockPropCase5b. Object .CustomEvent += new CustomIntEventHandler(Object_CustomEvent); mockPropCase5b. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 5 ; Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " IntGetSetProperty={0}" , mockPropCase5b. Object .IntGetSetProperty)); #endregion #region Verification Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase6 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase6.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty); mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; mockPropCase6. Object .IntGetSetProperty = 10 ; bool propOk = mockPropCase6.VerifyProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, SimpleMock.Core.Properties.PropertyType.Setter, 2 ); string propMsg = propOk ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(propMsg); Mock<ITestClass> mockPropCase6b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockPropCase6b.SetupProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty).Returns( 2 ); int valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; valueOfProp = mockPropCase6b. Object .IntGetSetProperty; propOk = mockPropCase6b.VerifyProperty(x = > x.IntGetSetProperty, SimpleMock.Core.Properties.PropertyType.Getter, 2 ); propMsg = propOk ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(propMsg); #endregion #endregion Console.ReadLine(); } static void Object_CustomEvent( int arg1, int arg2) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_CustomEvent called with {0},{1}" , arg1, arg2)); } static void Object_Changed( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed called with {0}" ,e)); } static void Object_Changed2( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed2 called with {0}" , e)); } }

And let's now look at its output:

Uber Example: Methods

Obviously since we are dealing with a DSL for creating mock objects, we are going to have to provide some way of dealing with setting up methods for our mock using our DSL. But just what sort of thing should we allow for?

Methods can accept values, can accept only valid values, and return values, and can throw Exception(s) and also raise events, and can be called once, twice n-many times of never. As such here is what I came up with that the DSL needs to support for methods:

We need a way of setting up what values a method should return

We need a way of setting up what values will be passed to the method

We need a way of calling back user code when a method is called

We need a way that a method should throw an Exception

We need a way that a method can raise an event

So that is what our DSL will support. Now let's continue to have a look at how this is achieved.

One thing to note is that a lot of the functionality we are going to discuss for methods is much the same as we previously discussed with properties, the only difference being that for methods we will be using the following two data structures instead of the ones we previously used for properties:

MethodData<T> : The method builder that is used internally to create/store method data inside the semantic model

: The method builder that is used internally to create/store method data inside the semantic model MethodInterceptor : The overall interceptor that deals with method level invocation interception

For completeness here is what these two classes look like in their entirety:

MethodData<T>

internal sealed class MethodData<T> : IMethodData<T>, IInterceptableMethodData, ISupportExceptions { private List<IArgumentChecker> argumentCheckers; private object proxy; private object returnValue; private ICallbackInvoker callback; private MethodInfo method; private int callLimit; private int hasBeenCalled; private List<EventWrapper> eventsToRaise; private Exception exceptionToThrow; private EventRaiserHelper<T> eventRaiserHelper = new EventRaiserHelper<T>(); public MethodData() { argumentCheckers = new List<IArgumentChecker>(); eventsToRaise = new List<EventWrapper>(); hasBeenCalled = 0 ; exceptionToThrow = null ; } public IMock Mock { get ; set ; } public IMethodData<T> Returns( object returnValue) { this .returnValue = returnValue; return this ; } public IMethodData<T> IsCalled( int callLimit) { this .callLimit = callLimit; return this ; } public IMethodData<T> WithCallback<T1>(Expression<Action<T1>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerOne<T1>(callbackDelegate); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> WithCallback<T1, T2>(Expression<Action<T1, T2>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerTwo<T1,T2>(callbackDelegate); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> WithPropertyBagCallback(Expression<Action<DynamicWrapper>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerDynamic(callbackDelegate); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> RaiseEvent(Action<T> eventToRaise, EventArgs eventArgs) { MemberInfo member = eventRaiserHelper.GetEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, proxy, eventToRaise); eventsToRaise.Add( new EventWrapper(member, new object [] { eventArgs}, false )); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> RaiseEvent(Action<T> eventToRaise, params object [] args) { MemberInfo member = eventRaiserHelper.GetEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, proxy, eventToRaise); eventsToRaise.Add( new EventWrapper(member, args, true )); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> Throws<TEx>() where TEx : Exception { exceptionToThrow = (Exception)Activator.CreateInstance<TEx>(); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> Throws(Exception ex) { exceptionToThrow = ex; return this ; } #region IInterceptableMethodData members List<IArgumentChecker> IInterceptableMethodData.ArgumentCheckers { get { return argumentCheckers; } set { argumentCheckers = value ; } } object IInterceptableMethodData.Proxy { get { return proxy; } set { proxy = value ; } } object IInterceptableMethodData.ReturnValue { get { return returnValue; } set { returnValue = value ; } } ICallbackInvoker IInterceptableMethodData.Callback { get { return callback; } set { callback = value ; } } MethodInfo IInterceptableMethodData.Method { get { return method; } set { method = value ; } } int IInterceptableMethodData.HasBeenCalled { get { return hasBeenCalled; } set { hasBeenCalled = value ; } } void IInterceptableMethodData.RaiseEvents() { foreach (EventWrapper eventWrapper in eventsToRaise) { eventRaiserHelper.RaiseEvent((IEventRaisingAgent)Mock, eventWrapper.IsCustomEvent, proxy, eventWrapper.Args, eventWrapper.Member); } } #endregion #region ISupportExceptions members Exception ISupportExceptions.ExceptionToThrow { get { return exceptionToThrow; } set { exceptionToThrow = value ; } } bool ISupportExceptions.HasException { get { return exceptionToThrow != null ; } } #endregion }

MethodInterceptor

internal class MethodInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptableMethodData> allMethodsForProxy = parentMock.AllMethodsForProxy; List<IInterceptableMethodData> methodDataItems = allMethodsForProxy.Where(x = > x.Method.Name == invocation.Method.Name).ToList(); if (!methodDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); if (methodDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); IInterceptableMethodData methodData = methodDataItems. Single (); ExceptionHelper.ThrowException((ISupportExceptions)methodData); methodData.RaiseEvents(); methodData.HasBeenCalled++; for ( int i = 0 ; i < invocation.Arguments.Length; i++) { IArgumentChecker checker = methodData.ArgumentCheckers[i]; if (!checker.CheckArgument(invocation.Arguments[i])) { throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was called with invalid arguments" , invocation.Method.Name)); } } if (methodData.Callback is IIsDynamicallbackInvoker) { ParameterInfo[] methodParams = invocation.Method.GetParameters().ToArray(); DynamicWrapper wrapper = new DynamicWrapper(); for ( int i = 0 ; i < methodParams.Length; i++) { wrapper[methodParams[i].Name] = invocation.Arguments[i]; } methodData.Callback.InvokeCallback( new object [] { wrapper }); } else { methodData.Callback.InvokeCallback(invocation.Arguments); } invocation.ReturnValue = methodData.ReturnValue; } }

Methods: How the MethodData<T> Builders are Created

As most of the concepts for dealing with methods have already been covered by the concepts we went over for properties, this section will only detail those parts that are different from the properties we have already seen.

One immediate difference is that the mock object that underpins the Uber Example DSL, has MethodData<T> builder objects that are built for dealing with methods, rather than PropertyData<T> which we already saw above, when dealing with properties. So how are these MethodData<T> builder objects created in the first place?

Well, it starts with the basic DSL method syntax which is as follows:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())); string case4b = mockCase4b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 );

Which uses the following mock code:

public class Mock<T> : IMock, IEventRaiser<T>, IEventRaisingAgent { private T proxy; private List<IInterceptableMethodData> allMethodsForProxy = new List<IInterceptableMethodData>(); public Mock() { proxy = CreateProxy<T>(); } public IMethodData<T> Setup(Expression<Action<T>> method) { MethodData<T> methodData = GetMethodFromExpression(method.Body); ((IInterceptableMethodData)methodData).ArgumentCheckers = GetArgumentCheckers(methodData, method.ToLambda().ToMethodCall()); ; allMethodsForProxy.Add(methodData); return methodData; } public IMethodData<T> Setup(Expression<Func<T, Object>> method) { MethodData<T> methodData = GetMethodFromExpression(method.Body); ((IInterceptableMethodData)methodData).ArgumentCheckers = GetArgumentCheckers(methodData, method.ToLambda().ToMethodCall()); ; allMethodsForProxy.Add(methodData); return methodData; } private MethodData<T> GetMethodFromExpression(Expression expr) { if (expr is MethodCallExpression) { MethodCallExpression methodCallExpression = expr as MethodCallExpression; MethodData<T> methodData = new MethodData<T>(); ((IInterceptableMethodData)methodData).Proxy = proxy; methodData.Mock = this ; ((IInterceptableMethodData)methodData).Method = methodCallExpression.Method; return methodData; } throw new InvalidOperationException( " Could not create Setup for this method" ); } }

Where both the Setup methods take an Expression which holds the method to call, which is obtained using the GetMethodFromExpression helper method shown above.

Each of the following sub sections make use of these MethodData<T> method builder objects which are returned by the mock Fluent interface that were obtained using this code.

Methods: Validating Arguments

One cool thing that we might like to allow in the DSL to do is to specify argument checkers that can be applied to the method's argument values, such that when the method is actually called, the method invocation will run through any argument checker that were initially setup on the mock for the particular method prior to the method invocation. If any of the argument checkers that were setup in the DSL for the currently invocation fails, an InvalidOperationException is thrown, indicating that an invalid argument was supplied to the method being invocated.

So how does this work? Well, as before, we start by looking at the actual DSL syntax, which is something like this:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())); string case4b = mockCase4b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 );

Where this is a typical argument checker.

So how does this work? Well, as before, we start by looking at the actual DSL syntax, which is something like this:

It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>()

If we look at the It class, it may make a bit more sense what is going on here.

public class It { public static T IsAny<T>() { return default (T); } public static T Is<T>(Predicate<T> pred) { return default (T); } }

It is a dead simple class, so how do these argument validators get created?

The creation of them actually happens in the Setup methods that we saw earlier within the Mock class, where they both end up calling this helper method that returns a List<IArgumentChecker> object which represents the argument checkers for the method that the DSL is currently building.

private List<IArgumentChecker> GetArgumentCheckers(MethodData<T> methodData, MethodCallExpression methodCall) { Expression[] arguments = methodCall.Arguments.ToArray<Expression>(); List<IArgumentChecker> currentArgumentCheckerSet = new List<IArgumentChecker>(); for ( int i = 0 ; i < arguments.Count(); i++) { if (arguments[i] is MethodCallExpression) { IArgumentChecker argumentChecker = ExpressionHelper.GetCheckerFromMethodCallExpression(arguments[i] as MethodCallExpression); if (argumentChecker != null ) { currentArgumentCheckerSet.Add(argumentChecker); } else { throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " You need to supply Constraints for all arguments for Method {0}" , ((IInterceptableMethodData)methodData).Method.Name)); } } } return currentArgumentCheckerSet; }

Where this in turn makes use of the following method ExpressionHelper.GetCheckerFromMethodCallExpression(..) :

public static IArgumentChecker GetCheckerFromMethodCallExpression(MethodCallExpression methodCallExpression) { List<Type> genericParams = new List<Type>(); IArgumentChecker argumentChecker= null ; genericParams = methodCallExpression.Method.GetGenericArguments().ToList(); if (methodCallExpression.Method.DeclaringType == typeof (It)) { switch (methodCallExpression.Method.Name) { case " IsAny" : argumentChecker = new IsAnyArgumentChecker(genericParams.First()); break ; case " Is" : if (methodCallExpression.Arguments[ 0 ] is LambdaExpression) { LambdaExpression lambda = (LambdaExpression)methodCallExpression.Arguments[ 0 ]; if (lambda != null ) { Type[] lambdaGenParams = new Type[] { lambda.Parameters[ 0 ].Type }; var func = lambda.Compile(); var isArgumentCheckerType = typeof (IsArgumentChecker<>).MakeGenericType(lambdaGenParams); argumentChecker = (IArgumentChecker)Activator.CreateInstance(isArgumentCheckerType, new object [] { func }); } } break ; default : argumentChecker= null ; break ; } } return argumentChecker; }

The end result of this code is that we create one of two possible argument checkers, we either create a simple IsAnyArgumentChecker which is as follows:

public class IsAnyArgumentChecker : IArgumentChecker { private Type typeOfIsAnyArgument; public IsAnyArgumentChecker(Type typeOfIsAnyArgument) { this .typeOfIsAnyArgument = typeOfIsAnyArgument; } public bool CheckArgument( object argument) { return argument.GetType().IsAssignableFrom(typeOfIsAnyArgument); } }

Or we create an IArgumentChecker that will make use of the original Predicate<T> that was passed into the DSL method builder. So now that we have some

IArgumentChecker

MethodData<T>

List<IArgumentChecker>

InvalidOperationException

MethodInterceptor

(s) created and associated them with themethod builder, how do these get used to actually do the validation? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple, we simply intercept any method call and run the arguments passed to the method through theassociated with the method invocation and see if the are all valid. If they are not, anis raised. Here are the relevant parts of the

internal class MethodInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptableMethodData> allMethodsForProxy = parentMock.AllMethodsForProxy; List<IInterceptableMethodData> methodDataItems = allMethodsForProxy.Where(x = > x.Method.Name == invocation.Method.Name).ToList(); if (!methodDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); if (methodDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); IInterceptableMethodData methodData = methodDataItems. Single (); .... .... .... for ( int i = 0 ; i < invocation.Arguments.Length; i++) { IArgumentChecker checker = methodData.ArgumentCheckers[i]; if (!checker.CheckArgument(invocation.Arguments[i])) { throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was called with invalid arguments" , invocation.Method.Name)); } } .... .... .... } }

Methods: Returning Values

This works much the same as as returning values from properties work, with the exception that we are dealing with a MethodData<T> builder data structure and a MethodInterceptor .

Here is an example of how you might configure the DSL to return a value from a method from user code:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase1 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase1.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); string case1 = mockCase1. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 );

Methods: Callbacks

The DSL also supports the ability to supply callbacks in the DSL code. These callbacks are typically defined as follows in the DSL:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase1 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase1.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithCallback<int, int>((x, y) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , x, y))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); string case1 = mockCase1. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); Mock<ITestClass> mockCase2 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase2.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); string case2 = mockCase2. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 );

Where the two DSL method chaining methods that are used are called:

WithCallback

WithPropertyBagCallback

You may ask why there are two types of callback methods chaining DSL methods available, and you would be right to ask this question. The reason is that since we do not know what the method signature is in advance of it being mocked, we don't know what type of callback delegate would be needed. Sure we could make a dynamic delegate using Reflection.Emit which is an avenue I looked into, but that dynamic delegate would also need to be known about up front in order to get the WithCallBack MethodData<T> builder to work correctly.

It seemed like a chicken and egg type of thing. This is why I have opted for two separate callbacks, there is WithCallback which deals with 1 or 2 arguments, and then there is WithPropertyBagCallback which creates a dynamic property bag type object with any number of parameters. When I finally looked at what Moq did, I can see this is in fact an issue Moq only got around by including delegates that took up to 20 arguments. Whilst I can see why they did that, I did not like it that much.

Anyway let's continue to look at the two MethodData<T> builder methods that deal with callbacks, shall we?

WithCallback

Here is the MethodData<T> builder code that deals with the simple cases where we know the argument types and number of arguments:

public IMethodData<T> WithCallback<T1>(Expression<Action<T1>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerOne<T1>(callbackDelegate); return this ; } public IMethodData<T> WithCallback<T1, T2>(Expression<Action<T1, T2>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerTwo<T1,T2>(callbackDelegate); return this ; }

Where we simply end up creating these types of callback invoker, which is easy as we know the types and number of callback arguments to create/use:

internal sealed class ActionCallbackInvokerOne<T> : ICallbackInvoker { private readonly Expression<Action<T>> callbackDelegate; public ActionCallbackInvokerOne(Expression<Action<T>> callbackDelegate) { this .callbackDelegate = callbackDelegate; } public void InvokeCallback( object [] args) { LambdaExpression l = callbackDelegate as LambdaExpression; Delegate d = l.Compile(); d.DynamicInvoke(args); } } internal sealed class ActionCallbackInvokerTwo<T, T2> : ICallbackInvoker { private readonly Expression<Action<T, T2>> callbackDelegate; public ActionCallbackInvokerTwo(Expression<Action<T, T2>> callbackDelegate) { this .callbackDelegate = callbackDelegate; } public void InvokeCallback( object [] args) { LambdaExpression l = callbackDelegate as LambdaExpression; Delegate d = l.Compile(); d.DynamicInvoke(args); } }

WithPropertyBagCallback

When we have an unknown number of arguments for a method, we resort to using a dynamic object wrapper/invoker. Here is the MethodData<T> builder code:

public IMethodData<T> WithPropertyBagCallback(Expression<Action<DynamicWrapper>> callbackDelegate) { callback = new ActionCallbackInvokerDynamic(callbackDelegate); return this ; }

Which creates a ActionCallbackInvokerDynamic which looks like this:

internal sealed class ActionCallbackInvokerDynamic : ICallbackInvoker, IIsDynamicallbackInvoker { private readonly Expression<Action<DynamicWrapper>> callbackDelegate; public ActionCallbackInvokerDynamic(Expression<Action<DynamicWrapper>> callbackDelegate) { this .callbackDelegate = callbackDelegate; } public void InvokeCallback( object [] args) { LambdaExpression l = callbackDelegate as LambdaExpression; Delegate d = l.Compile(); d.DynamicInvoke(args); } }

Where the DynamicWrapper used in the callback looks like this:

public class DynamicWrapper { private readonly IDictionary<String, object> propBag = new Dictionary<string, object>(); public object this [ string propName] { get { return propBag[propName]; } set { propBag[propName]= value ; } } }

OK, so now that we have all these callbacks stored against the MethodData<T> builder, it is just a question of doing the actual callbacks. As before this is done in the MethodInterceptor , where this is the most relevant part of the MethodInterceptor code:

internal class MethodInterceptor { public static void Intercept(IMock parentMock, IInvocation invocation) { List<IInterceptableMethodData> allMethodsForProxy = parentMock.AllMethodsForProxy; List<IInterceptableMethodData> methodDataItems = allMethodsForProxy.Where(x = > x.Method.Name == invocation.Method.Name).ToList(); if (!methodDataItems.Any()) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was not found and is needed for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); if (methodDataItems.Count() != 1 ) throw new InvalidOperationException( string .Format( " Method '{0}' was found more than once for this Mock" , invocation.Method.Name)); IInterceptableMethodData methodData = methodDataItems. Single (); .... .... .... .... if (methodData.Callback is IIsDynamicallbackInvoker) { ParameterInfo[] methodParams = invocation.Method.GetParameters().ToArray(); DynamicWrapper wrapper = new DynamicWrapper(); for ( int i = 0 ; i < methodParams.Length; i++) { wrapper[methodParams[i].Name] = invocation.Arguments[i]; } methodData.Callback.InvokeCallback( new object [] { wrapper }); } else { methodData.Callback.InvokeCallback(invocation.Arguments); } invocation.ReturnValue = methodData.ReturnValue; } }

Methods: Throwing Exceptions

This works much the same as as throwing Exceptions from properties work, with the exception that we are dealing with a MethodData<T> builder data structure and a MethodInterceptor .

Here is an example of how you might configure the DSL to throw an Exception from a method from user code:

try { Mock<ITestClass> mockCase5 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase5.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).Throws( new InvalidOperationException( " this is from the mock" )); string case5 = mockCase5. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } try { Mock<ITestClass> mockCase5b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase5b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).Throws<InvalidOperationException>(); string case5b = mockCase5b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); }

Methods: Raising Events

This works much the same as as raising events from properties work, with the exception that we are dealing with a MethodData<T> builder data structure and a MethodInterceptor .

Here is an example of how you might configure the DSL to raise an event from a method from user code:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); mockCase4. Object .Changed += new EventHandler<EventArgs>(Object_Changed); string case4 = mockCase4. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); mockCase4.RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4b. Object .CustomEvent += new CustomIntEventHandler(Object_CustomEvent); mockCase4b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 99 , 101 ); string case4b = mockCase4b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); mockCase4b.RaiseEvent(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 101 , 99 ); static void Object_CustomEvent( int arg1, int arg2) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_CustomEvent called with {0},{1}" , arg1, arg2)); } static void Object_Changed( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed called with {0}" ,e)); } static void Object_Changed2( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed2 called with {0}" , e)); }

Methods: Verification

This works much the same way as verifying properties work, with the exception that we are dealing with a MethodData<T> builder data structure and a MethodInterceptor .

Here is an example of how you might configure the DSL to raise an event from a method from user code:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase6 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase6.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.IsAny<int>(), It.IsAny<int>())) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); mockCase6. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); mockCase6. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); bool ok = mockCase6.Verify(x = > x.PrintSomething( 1 , 1 ), WasCalled.Once()); string msg = ok ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(msg);

Methods: Interception

As I have stated on numerous occasions, I am using Castle Interceptors. The interceptor associated with method interception is called MethodInterceptor and I showed you a complete listing of that earlier.

Methods: Demonstration

To illustrate all these features, let's consider the following user DSL code:

class Program { static void Main( string [] args) { #region Method Tests #region Callbacks Mock<ITestClass> mockCase1 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase1.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithCallback<int, int>((x, y) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , x, y))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); string case1 = mockCase1. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); Mock<ITestClass> mockCase2 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase2.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); string case2 = mockCase2. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); Mock<ITestClass> mockCase3 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase3.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); string case3 = mockCase3. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); #endregion #region Raising events Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); mockCase4. Object .Changed += new EventHandler<EventArgs>(Object_Changed); string case4 = mockCase4. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); mockCase4.RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4b. Object .CustomEvent += new CustomIntEventHandler(Object_CustomEvent); mockCase4b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).RaiseEvent(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 99 , 101 ); string case4b = mockCase4b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); mockCase4b.RaiseEvent(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 101 , 99 ); #endregion #region Throwing Exceptions try { Mock<ITestClass> mockCase5 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase5.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).Throws( new InvalidOperationException( " this is from the mock" )); string case5 = mockCase5. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } try { Mock<ITestClass> mockCase5b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase5b.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 1 ), It.IsAny<int>())) .WithPropertyBagCallback((DynamicWrapper propbag) = > Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Was called with {0} {1}" , propbag[ " data" ], propbag[ " data2" ]))) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ).Throws<InvalidOperationException>(); string case5b = mockCase5b. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); } catch (InvalidOperationException ex) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Exception seen. Message was : '{0}'" , ex.Message)); } #endregion #region Method Verification Mock<ITestClass> mockCase6 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase6.Setup(x = > x.PrintSomething(It.IsAny<int>(), It.Is<int>(( value ) = > value == 3 ))) .WithCallback<int, int>((x, y) = > Console.WriteLine( " Calling verify method which should only get called once" )) .Returns( " HEY IT WORKS" ); mockCase6. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 3 ); try { mockCase6. Object .PrintSomething( 1 , 5 ); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine( " Method was called with incorrect " + " arguments [{0},{1}], expected [{2},{3}]" , 1 , 5 , 1 , 3 ); } bool ok = mockCase6.Verify(x = > x.PrintSomething( 1 , 1 ), WasCalled.Once()); string msg = ok ? " Was called correct number of times" : " Was NOT called correct number of times" ; Console.WriteLine(msg); #endregion #endregion Console.WriteLine( " ========== END ==========" ); Console.ReadLine(); } static void Object_CustomEvent( int arg1, int arg2) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_CustomEvent called with {0},{1}" , arg1, arg2)); } static void Object_Changed( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed called with {0}" ,e)); } static void Object_Changed2( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed2 called with {0}" , e)); } }

And let's now look at its output:

Uber Example: Miscellaneous

One of the final things I would like to mention is that it is also possible to raise events directly from the mock object. This is done by the use of the following methods, which allow the DSL to specify either a standard event or a custom event signature.

public class Mock<T> : IMock, IEventRaiser<T>, IEventRaisingAgent { private Dictionary<string, EventData> allEventsForProxy = new Dictionary<string, EventData>(); Dictionary<string, EventData> IEventRaisingAgent.AllEventsForProxy { get { return this .allEventsForProxy; } } public void RaiseEvent(Action<T> eventToRaise, EventArgs eventArgs) { new EventRaiserHelper<T>().GetAndRaiseEvent( this , proxy, eventToRaise, new object [] { eventArgs }); } public void RaiseEvent(Action<T> eventToRaise, params object [] args) { new EventRaiserHelper<T>().GetAndRaiseEventCustomArgs( this , proxy, eventToRaise, args); } }

As before, the technique used is to use the extremely short lived proxy that has its calls intercepted to obtain/store the actual event information. This works the same as previously discussed. What is different with raising the events directly on the mock object, is that we are able to raise the event right then and there, we do not need to wait for a property setter or method call to occur to work out whether the DSL provided for those properties/methods specified an event to raise. The DSL portion is literally saying "Raise Event_XYZ NOW".

The code to obtain and raise the events directly from the mock is shown below. It actually really boils down to a few simple steps:

Run the very short lived proxy where the original portion of the expression tree ( x => x.Changed += null ) is essentially played and intercepted against the short-lived proxy to obtain an event name from the short lived proxy MemberInfo . Look to see if we have any events on the mock that match the name of the event just requested. If we find some events for step 2, just invoke the delegate handlers for the InvocationList for the found event name.

public class EventRaiserHelper<T> { public void GetAndRaiseEvent(IEventRaisingAgent eventRaisingAgent, object proxy, Action<T> eventToRaise, object [] args) { List<object> delegateArgs = new List<object>() { proxy }; delegateArgs.AddRange(args); PredictiveAnalyzer<T> predictiveAnalyzer = new PredictiveAnalyzer<T>(proxy, eventToRaise, AnalyzerType.Event); predictiveAnalyzer.Analyze(); MemberInfo member = predictiveAnalyzer.Invocation; foreach (Delegate handler in eventRaisingAgent.AllEventsForProxy[member.Name].InvocationList) { handler.Method.Invoke(handler.Target, delegateArgs.ToArray()); } } public void GetAndRaiseEventCustomArgs(IEventRaisingAgent eventRaisingAgent, object proxy, Action<T> eventToRaise, object [] args) { PredictiveAnalyzer<T> predictiveAnalyzer = new PredictiveAnalyzer<T>(proxy, eventToRaise, AnalyzerType.Event); predictiveAnalyzer.Analyze(); MemberInfo member = predictiveAnalyzer.Invocation; foreach (Delegate handler in eventRaisingAgent.AllEventsForProxy[member.Name].InvocationList) { handler.Method.Invoke(handler.Target, args); } } }

And here is how you would write a portion of the DSL to raise a standard event signature directly on the mock object:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4 = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4. Object .Changed += new EventHandler<EventArgs>(Object_Changed); mockCase4.RaiseEvent(x = > x.Changed += null , new EventArgs()); ... ... static void Object_Changed( object sender, EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_Changed called with {0}" ,e)); }

And here is how you would write a portion of the DSL to raise a custom event signature directly on the mock object:

Mock<ITestClass> mockCase4b = new Mock<ITestClass>(); mockCase4b. Object .CustomEvent += new CustomIntEventHandler(Object_CustomEvent); mockCase4b.RaiseEvent(x = > x.CustomEvent += null , 101 , 99 ); ... ... static void Object_CustomEvent( int arg1, int arg2) { Console.WriteLine( string .Format( " Object_CustomEvent called with {0},{1}" , arg1, arg2)); }

Uber Example: Demo, Please Examine It

The demo illustrates this far better than my words I feel, please have a play with it. The Uber demo is "SimpleMock.TestApp". Have a play, I hope that you can grasp how it works from the examples that I have included in the demo code.

That's it

Anyway that is all I wanted to say this time, I hope you have enjoyed this article, I know I have enjoyed writing this one, as it was not obvious how to do certain things and required a lot of thinking at some points in the article/code. If you too enjoyed it, could you maybe give it a vote or let me know what you thought, or even better both? Many thanks.

By the way my next article will be a full rich client/server side code all the way to the database n-tiered article, which will be used to demonstrate various aspects/techniques people have been asking me to talk about for ages, where I have been putting it off due to the sheer amount of work....The time has come though, so that is what I will be working on next.

Oh, by the way, it will be a Zombie explorer application, charting zombie activity around the globe, and it will involve some sort of map component, should be cool.