In this post I wrote about the use of app settings in Asp.Net Core. One thing that I didn’t cover at the time was the fact that, as an extension library, the configuration extensions weren’t very easy to include in unit tests. Of course the intention is that you read the configuration at the start, pass through a model class and no mocking is required.
However, sometimes you’ll find yourself wanting to mock out a particular setting. Before I get into this, this post is heavily based on this article which describes the same process.
The following is a code sample using Moq:
var configuration = new Mock<IConfiguration>();
var configurationSection = new Mock<IConfigurationSection>();
configurationSection.Setup(a => a.Value).Returns("testvalue");
configuration.Setup(a => a.GetSection("TestValueKey")).Returns(configurationSection.Object);
This will cause any call to get the app settings key “TestValueKey” to return “testvalue”. As is stated in the linked article, whilst GetValue is an extension method, GetSection is not, but is (internally) called by GetValue.