Comments on: Unit Testing [Serializable]

By: Kevin Watkins

Kevin Watkins — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:32:48 +0000

I’ve done something similar before using NUnit. I used the ValueSourceAttribute on my test method to specify another method that generates the list of types to check. Then the test method itself takes each type in turn and does Assert.That(type, Is.Serializable) to check that it’s serializable.

The advantage of this approach is that you get a separate test for each type being checked. Therefore if one isn’t serializable you can see at a glance which one it is. Looks like with the approach above you’ve have to debug the test first to find out which type(s) aren’t serializable.

By: Yann Trevin

Yann Trevin — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:23:02 +0000

Interestingly enough, Gallio/MbUnit has a set of built-in assertions which exactly do that: Assert.IsSerializableType, Assert, SerializeThenDeserialize, etc.

By: David Mohundro

David Mohundro — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:01:49 +0000

I have occasionally written tests to ensure that my objects serialize correctly to sort of “future proof” the classes. For example, I might want to ensure that someone doesn’t add a non serializable type to it at some point in the future.

It certainly doesn’t make sense to do this in all cases, but it has saved me in the past :)