After writing unit tests for awhile, you will observe there are common patterns and common needs.  One way to fulfill some of these needs is to use a “test base class” or an “abstract test class”.  Using such a pattern for MSTest can help you create more robust unit tests with less code.

The concept is pretty straight forward.  Basically, create a base class that can perform some mundane or defensive programming tasks for you.

In MSTest, this is accomplished by create a new class (or unit test class) in either your test assembly or a common assembly (that is also a test assembly).  You cannot make it truly abstract (that leads to some funkiness), but you can inherit from in when you create a new unit test class by decorating it with the TestMethod attribute.

You can push the typical TestContext property up to a base unit test class, as well as provide virtual methods for TestInitialize and TestCleanup.

Things to think about for you Test Base class:

·         Mock out items and clean up all your mocking

·         Clean up your dead files

·         Add support methods to copy test files

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

namespace TestSupport
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Summary description for UnitTest1
    /// </summary>
    [TestClass]
    public class TestBase
    {

        private TestContext testContextInstance;

        /// <summary>
        ///Gets or sets the test context which provides
        ///information about and functionality for the current test run.
        ///</summary>
        public virtual TestContext TestContext
        {
            get
            {
                return testContextInstance;
            }
            set
            {
                testContextInstance = value;
            }
        }

        [ClassInitialize]
        public static void MyClassInitialize(TestContext testContext) { }

        [ClassCleanup]
        public static void MyClassCleanup() { }

        protected bool _testInitializedRan;

        [TestInitialize]
        public virtual void MyTestInitialize()
        {
            _testInitializedRan = true;
        }

        [TestCleanup]
        public virtual void MyTestCleanup() { }
    }

    [TestClass]
    public class MyTestClass : TestBase
    {
        [TestMethod]
        public void ShowsThatTestInitializeRan()
        {
            Assert.IsTrue(_testInitializedRan);
        }
    }
}