Chapter 11 Generating .NET 2.0 Persistent Objects and Windows Applications

Generating Unit Tests

If there are many persistent classes, it can be difficult to test them all to prove that:

The mappings are correctly defined
The CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) options work
The find methods work
The navigations work

Usually, developers have to develop unit tests or user-interfaces in order to test these objects. PowerDesigner can automate this time-consuming process by using the NUnit or Visual Studio Test System (VSTS) to generate the unit test classes.

Some conditions must be met to unit test for a class:

Mapping of the class should be defined.
The class can be instantiated. Unit test classes cannot be generated for abstract classes.
The class is not a value type.
The Mutable property is set to true. If Mutable is set to false, the class can not be updated or deleted.
The class has no unfulfilled foreign key constraints. If any foreign key is mandatory, the parent class should be reachable (navigable on the parent class side) for testing.

You can run the tests using NUnit or Visual Studio Test System.