c# - Using Moq to mock an asynchronous method for a unit test

Question

I am testing a method for a service that makes a Web API call. Using a normal HttpClient works fine for unit tests if I also run the web service (located in another project in the solution) locally.

However when I check in my changes the build server won't have access to the web service so the tests will fail.

I've devised a way around this for my unit tests by creating an IHttpClient interface and implementing a version that I use in my application. For unit tests, I make a mocked version complete with a mocked asynchronous post method. Here's where I have run into problems. I want to return an OK HttpStatusResult for this particular test. For another similar test I will be returning a bad result.

The test will run but will never complete. It hangs at the await. I am new to asynchronous programming, delegates, and Moq itself and I've been searching SO and google for a while learning new things but I still can't seem to get past this problem.

Here is the method I am trying to test:

public async Task<bool> QueueNotificationAsync(IHttpClient client, Email email)
{
    // do stuff
    try
    {
        // The test hangs here, never returning
        HttpResponseMessage response = await client.PostAsync(uri, content);

        // more logic here
    }
    // more stuff
}

Here's my unit test method:

[TestMethod]
public async Task QueueNotificationAsync_Completes_With_ValidEmail()
{
    Email email = new Email()
    {
        FromAddress = "bob@example.com",
        ToAddress = "bill@example.com",
        CCAddress = "brian@example.com",
        BCCAddress = "ben@example.com",
        Subject = "Hello",
        Body = "Hello World."
    };
    var mockClient = new Mock<IHttpClient>();
    mockClient.Setup(c => c.PostAsync(
        It.IsAny<Uri>(),
        It.IsAny<HttpContent>()
        )).Returns(() => new Task<HttpResponseMessage>(() => new HttpResponseMessage(System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)));

    bool result = await _notificationRequestService.QueueNotificationAsync(mockClient.Object, email);

    Assert.IsTrue(result, "Queue failed.");
}

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You're creating a task but never starting it, so it's never completing. However, don't just start the task - instead, change to using Task.FromResult<TResult> which will give you a task which has already completed:

...
.Returns(Task.FromResult(new HttpResponseMessage(System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)));

Note that you won't be testing the actual asynchrony this way - if you want to do that, you need to do a bit more work to create a Task<T> that you can control in a more fine-grained manner... but that's something for another day.

You might also want to consider using a fake for IHttpClient rather than mocking everything - it really depends on how often you need it.