Dependency Injection and Automock
The Challenge of Testing with Traditional DI​
Dependency injection is a technique that improves the testability and modularity of classes by having an object or function receive other objects that it needs rather than creating them internally. The goal of dependency injection is to create loosely coupled programs by separating the concerns of creating and using objects. Traditional DI techniques, however, can present a number of difficulties when conducting unit testing:
Complexity: Mastery of a framework's DI container intricacies is often required, adding complexity to test setups.
Maintenance Overhead: The burden of maintaining alignment between stubs, mocks, and their real counterparts increases with application growth.
Performance: The actual DI container can introduce latency, especially when it's responsible for additional tasks such as lifecycle management or module initialization.
Automock's Approach​
Automock improves upon the existing unit testing procedures of DI frameworks by creating a virtual DI container. There is an array of advantages to this change:
Speed: By simulating the actual DI container in the testing environment, Automock speeds up execution times.
Efficiency: Developers are therefore able to focus on writing the test logic instead of grappling with the complexities of test setup.
Isolation: Each test runs independently with mock implementations automatically provided, creating a streamlined and interference-free testing environment.
A frequently asked question is, "Does Automock work with the built-in unit testing tools in my framework?" The answer is that you no longer rely on the native testing tools of your DI framework. Instead, Automock's virtual environment takes precedence.