Setting HttpContext Current Session in a unit test

Question

I have a web service I am trying to unit test   In the service it pulls several values from the HttpContext like so    m password    string HttpContext Current Session  CustomerId     m userID    string HttpContext Current Session  CustomerUrl      in the unit test I am creating the context using a simple worker request  like so   SimpleWorkerRequest request   new SimpleWorkerRequest             null  new StringWriter     HttpContext context   new HttpContext request   HttpContext Current   context    However  whenever I try to set the values of HttpContext Current Session  HttpContext Current Session  CustomerId      customer1   HttpContext Current Session  CustomerUrl      customer1Url     I get null reference exception that says HttpContext Current Session is null    Is there any way to initialize the current session within the unit test

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The answer  Ro Hit gave helped me a lot  but I was missing the user credentials because I had to fake a user for authentication unit testing  Hence  let me describe how I solved it   According to this  if you add the method         using System Security Principal      GenericPrincipal FakeUser string userName                var fakeIdentity   new GenericIdentity userName           var principal   new GenericPrincipal fakeIdentity  null           return principal          and then append      HttpContext Current User   FakeUser  myDomain  myUser      to the last line of the TestSetup method you re done  the user credentials are added and ready to be used for authentication testing   I also noticed that there are other parts in HttpContext you might require  such as the  MapPath   method  There is a FakeHttpContext available  which is described here and can be installed via NuGet

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If you re using the MVC framework  this should work   I used Milox s FakeHttpContext and added a few additional lines of code   The idea came from this post   http   codepaste net p269t8  This seems to work in MVC 5   I haven t tried this in earlier versions of MVC   HttpContext Current   MockHttpContext FakeHttpContext     var wrapper   new HttpContextWrapper HttpContext Current    MyController controller   new MyController    controller ControllerContext   new ControllerContext wrapper  new RouteData    controller    string result   controller MyMethod

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You can  fake it  by creating a new HttpContext like this   http   www necronet org archive 2010 07 28 unit-testing-code-that-uses-httpcontext-current-session aspx  I ve taken that code and put it on an static helper class like so    public static HttpContext FakeHttpContext         var httpRequest   new HttpRequest      http   example com             var stringWriter   new StringWriter        var httpResponse   new HttpResponse stringWriter       var httpContext   new HttpContext httpRequest  httpResponse        var sessionContainer   new HttpSessionStateContainer  id   new SessionStateItemCollection                                                new HttpStaticObjectsCollection    10  true                                              HttpCookieMode AutoDetect                                              SessionStateMode InProc  false        httpContext Items  AspSession     typeof HttpSessionState  GetConstructor                                  BindingFlags NonPublic   BindingFlags Instance                                  null  CallingConventions Standard                                  new     typeof HttpSessionStateContainer                                     null                           Invoke new object     sessionContainer          return httpContext      Or instead of using reflection to construct the new HttpSessionState instance  you can just attach your HttpSessionStateContainer to the HttpContext  as per Brent M  Spell s comment    SessionStateUtility AddHttpSessionStateToContext httpContext  sessionContainer     and then you can call it in your unit tests like   HttpContext Current   MockHelper FakeHttpContext

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Milox solution is better than the accepted one IMHO but I had some problems with this implementation when handling urls with querystring   I made some changes to make it work properly with any urls and to avoid Reflection   public static HttpContext FakeHttpContext string url        var uri   new Uri url       var httpRequest   new HttpRequest string Empty  uri ToString                                            uri Query TrimStart            var stringWriter   new StringWriter        var httpResponse   new HttpResponse stringWriter       var httpContext   new HttpContext httpRequest  httpResponse        var sessionContainer   new HttpSessionStateContainer  id                                       new SessionStateItemCollection                                        new HttpStaticObjectsCollection                                        10  true  HttpCookieMode AutoDetect                                      SessionStateMode InProc  false        SessionStateUtility AddHttpSessionStateToContext                                           httpContext  sessionContainer        return httpContext

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Never mock   never  The solution is pretty simple  Why fake such a beautiful creation like HttpContext     Push the session down   Just this line is enough for most of us to understand but explained in detail below    string HttpContext Current Session  CustomerId    is how we access it now  Change this to    customObject SessionProperty  CustomerId     When called from test   customObject uses alternative store  DB or cloud key value  http   www kvstore io      But when called from the real application   customObject uses Session   how is this done  well    Dependency Injection    So test can set the session underground  and then call the application method as if it knows nothing about the session  Then test secretly checks if the application code correctly updated the session  Or if the application behaves based on the session value set by the test   Actually  we did end up mocking even though I said   never mock   Becuase we couldn t help but slip to the next rule   mock where it hurts the least    Mocking huge HttpContext or mocking a tiny session  which hurts the least  don t ask me where these rules came from  Let us just say common sense  Here is an interesting read on not mocking as unit test can kills us

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We had to mock HttpContext by using a HttpContextManager and calling the factory from within our application as well as the Unit Tests  public class HttpContextManager        private static HttpContextBase m context      public static HttpContextBase Current               get                       if  m context    null                  return m context               if  HttpContext Current    null                  throw new InvalidOperationException  HttpContext not available                 return new HttpContextWrapper HttpContext Current                        public static void SetCurrentContext HttpContextBase context                m context   context            You would then replace any calls to HttpContext Current with HttpContextManager Current and have access to the same methods  Then when you re testing  you can also access the HttpContextManager and mock your expectations  This is an example using Moq   private HttpContextBase GetMockedHttpContext         var context   new Mock lt HttpContextBase gt         var request   new Mock lt HttpRequestBase gt         var response   new Mock lt HttpResponseBase gt         var session   new Mock lt HttpSessionStateBase gt         var server   new Mock lt HttpServerUtilityBase gt         var user   new Mock lt IPrincipal gt         var identity   new Mock lt IIdentity gt         var urlHelper   new Mock lt UrlHelper gt          var routes   new RouteCollection        MvcApplication RegisterRoutes routes       var requestContext   new Mock lt RequestContext gt         requestContext Setup x   gt  x HttpContext  Returns context Object       context Setup ctx   gt  ctx Request  Returns request Object       context Setup ctx   gt  ctx Response  Returns response Object       context Setup ctx   gt  ctx Session  Returns session Object       context Setup ctx   gt  ctx Server  Returns server Object       context Setup ctx   gt  ctx User  Returns user Object       user Setup ctx   gt  ctx Identity  Returns identity Object       identity Setup id   gt  id IsAuthenticated  Returns true       identity Setup id   gt  id Name  Returns  test        request Setup req   gt  req Url  Returns new Uri  http   www google com         request Setup req   gt  req RequestContext  Returns requestContext Object       requestContext Setup x   gt  x RouteData  Returns new RouteData         request SetupGet req   gt  req Headers  Returns new NameValueCollection          return context Object      and then to use it within your unit tests  I call this within my Test Init method  HttpContextManager SetCurrentContext GetMockedHttpContext       you can then  in the above method add the expected results from Session that you re expecting to be available to your web service

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I worte something about this a while ago    Unit Testing HttpContext Current Session in MVC3  NET  Hope it helps    TestInitialize  public void TestSetup            We need to setup the Current HTTP Context as follows                      Step 1  Setup the HTTP Request     var httpRequest   new HttpRequest      http   localhost                 Step 2  Setup the HTTP Response     var httpResponce   new HttpResponse new StringWriter             Step 3  Setup the Http Context     var httpContext   new HttpContext httpRequest  httpResponce       var sessionContainer            new HttpSessionStateContainer  id                                           new SessionStateItemCollection                                           new HttpStaticObjectsCollection                                            10                                          true                                         HttpCookieMode AutoDetect                                         SessionStateMode InProc                                          false       httpContext Items  AspSession              typeof HttpSessionState           GetConstructor                              BindingFlags NonPublic   BindingFlags Instance                              null                               CallingConventions Standard                              new     typeof HttpSessionStateContainer                                 null           Invoke new object     sessionContainer             Step 4  Assign the Context     HttpContext Current   httpContext      TestMethod  public void BasicTest Push Item Into Session            Arrange     var itemValue    RandomItemValue       var itemKey    RandomItemKey           Act     HttpContext Current Session Add itemKey  itemValue           Assert     Assert AreEqual HttpContext Current Session itemKey   itemValue

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I was looking for something a little less invasive than the options mentioned above  In the end I came up with a cheesy solution  but it might get some folks moving a little faster   First I created a TestSession class   class TestSession   ISession        public TestSession                 Values   new Dictionary lt string  byte   gt                public string Id               get                       return  session id                        public bool IsAvailable               get                       return true                       public IEnumerable lt string gt  Keys               get   return Values Keys               public Dictionary lt string  byte   gt  Values   get  set         public void Clear                 Values Clear               public Task CommitAsync                 throw new NotImplementedException               public Task LoadAsync                 throw new NotImplementedException               public void Remove string key                Values Remove key              public void Set string key  byte   value                if  Values ContainsKey key                         Remove key                     Values Add key  value              public bool TryGetValue string key  out byte   value                if  Values ContainsKey key                         value   Values key               return true                    value   new byte 0           return false            Then I added an optional parameter to my controller s constructor  If the parameter is present  use it for session manipulation  Otherwise  use the HttpContext Session   class MyController        private readonly ISession  session       public MyController ISession session   null                 session   session              public IActionResult Action1                 Session   SetString  Key    Value            View               public IActionResult Action2                 ViewBag Key   Session   GetString  Key            View               private ISession Session                 return  session    HttpContext Session            Now I can inject my TestSession into the controller   class MyControllerTest        private readonly MyController  controller       public MyControllerTest                 var testSession   new TestSession            var  controller   new MyController testSession

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The answer that worked with me is what  Anthony had written  but you have to add another line which is       request SetupGet req   gt  req Headers  Returns new NameValueCollection       so you can use this   HttpContextFactory Current Request Headers Add key  value

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Try this way    public static HttpContext getCurrentSession               HttpContext Current   new HttpContext new HttpRequest     ConfigurationManager AppSettings  UnitTestSessionURL         new HttpResponse new System IO StringWriter              System Web SessionState SessionStateUtility AddHttpSessionStateToContext          HttpContext Current  new HttpSessionStateContainer     new SessionStateItemCollection    new HttpStaticObjectsCollection    20000  true          HttpCookieMode UseCookies  SessionStateMode InProc  false            return HttpContext Current

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Try this               MockHttpSession Setup         var session   new MockHttpSession                MockHttpRequest Setup - mock AJAX request         var httpRequest   new Mock lt HttpRequestBase gt                 Setup this part of the HTTP request for AJAX calls         httpRequest Setup req   gt  req  X-Requested-With    Returns  XMLHttpRequest                MockHttpContextBase Setup - mock request  cache  and session         var httpContext   new Mock lt HttpContextBase gt             httpContext Setup ctx   gt  ctx Request  Returns httpRequest Object           httpContext Setup ctx   gt  ctx Cache  Returns HttpRuntime Cache           httpContext Setup ctx   gt  ctx Session  Returns session               MockHttpContext for cache         var contextRequest   new HttpRequest      http   localhost                 var contextResponse   new HttpResponse new StringWriter             HttpContext Current   new HttpContext contextRequest  contextResponse               MockControllerContext Setup         var context   new Mock lt ControllerContext gt             context Setup ctx   gt  ctx HttpContext  Returns httpContext Object              TODO  Create new controller here                 Set controller s ControllerContext to context Object   And Add the class   public class MockHttpSession   HttpSessionStateBase       Dictionary lt string  object gt   sessionDictionary   new Dictionary lt string  object gt         public override object this string name                get                       return  sessionDictionary ContainsKey name     sessionDictionary name    null                    set                        sessionDictionary name    value                       public override void Abandon                 var keys   new List lt string gt              foreach  var kvp in  sessionDictionary                        keys Add kvp Key                      foreach  var key in keys                         sessionDictionary Remove key                        public override void Clear                 var keys   new List lt string gt              foreach  var kvp in  sessionDictionary                        keys Add kvp Key                      foreach var key in keys                         sessionDictionary Remove key                       This will allow you to test with both session and cache

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In asp net Core   MVC 6 rc2 you can set the HttpContext  var SomeController controller   new SomeController     controller ControllerContext   new ControllerContext    controller ControllerContext HttpContext   new DefaultHttpContext    controller HttpContext Session   new DummySession      rc 1 was  var SomeController controller   new SomeController     controller ActionContext   new ActionContext    controller ActionContext HttpContext   new DefaultHttpContext    controller HttpContext Session   new DummySession      https   stackoverflow com a 34022964 516748  Consider using Moq  new Mock lt ISession gt

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I found the following simple solution for specifying a user in the HttpContext  https   forums asp net post 5828182 aspx

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You can try FakeHttpContext   using  new FakeHttpContext         HttpContext Current Session  CustomerId      customer1

[c#] Setting HttpContext.Current.Session in a unit test

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