Need help understanding Mocks and Stubs
- by Theomax
I'm new to use mocking frameworks and I have a few questions on the things that I am not clear on. I'm using Rhinomocks to generate mock objects in my unit tests. I understand that mocks can be created to verify interactions between methods and they record the interactions etc and stubs allow you to setup data and entities required by the test but you do not verify expectations on stubs.
Looking at the recent unit tests I have created, I appear to be creating mocks literally for the purpose of stubbing and allowing for data to be setup. Is this a correct usage of mocks or is it incorrect if you're not actually calling verify on them?
For example:
user = MockRepository.GenerateMock<User>();
user.Stub(x => x.Id = Guid.NewGuid());
user.Stub(x => x.Name = "User1");
In the above code I generate a new user mock object, but I use a mock so I can stub the properties of the user because in some cases if the properties do not have a setter and I need to set them it seems the only way is to stub the property values. Is this a correct usage of stubbing and mocking?
Also, I am not completely clear on what the difference between the following lines is:
user.Stub(x => x.Id).Return(new Guid());
user.Stub(x => x.Id = Guid.NewGuid());
