Software Testing with Visual Studio AND Large Datasets (Time Series)

Question

3.00/5 (2 votes)

See more:

I'm looking for a good reference (to a webpage or book) on testing in Visual Studio with large datasets (with the native unit testing tools in Visual Studio). (I've got Visual Studio 2008 Professional.)

There are some articles on the internet on using a database as input for testing. Only the database in that case is used for input of (single) parameter values. My project though involves methods that do calculations on long time series (of mutual fund returns) that need at least 36 months of returns for multiple mutual funds. What I'm looking for is a tutorial on how to test this project (using one or a couple of fixed data sets).

Any references?

Posted 2-Feb-11 22:36pm

Gebbetje

Updated 2-Feb-11 22:44pm

v2

Add a Solution

Comments

wizardzz 3-Feb-11 14:25pm

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by testing the project?

It seems like you are trying to "test" the project instead of just running it. Why can't you just run it through that method with the large data set?

Gebbetje 4-Feb-11 4:48am

Hi wizardzz,
I'd like to (unit) test my project. If I run / debug it, and change code later, I'd like to be 100% sure that no other code breaks due to my changing some (other) part of the code.

1 solution

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

wizardzz · Answer 1 · 2011-02-04T07:50:00

Solution 1

How large is the testing dataset? Must you test every single peice of data in the DB? Typically you should be able to create some test cases based on certain scenarios and not have to do a full regression test.

What does the function signature look like? Are you able to create a wrapper function that plugs the data from the db to the function that processes it? If you do this, could you just unit test the wrapper function? I'm thinking the database / large dataset aspect does not have to be managed by your test, but rather a function?

Posted 4-Feb-11 7:50am

wizardzz

Comments

Gebbetje 8-Feb-11 4:08am

Thanks for your reply wizardzz and apologies for my late response.

>How large is the testing dataset?
The testing dataset should at least consist of 5 (mutual funds) x 60 (monthly returns) = 300 records. I would need a couple of those to be able to check different methods.

>Must you test every single peice of data in the DB? Typically you should be able to create
>some test cases based on certain scenarios and not have to do a full regression test.
I would need the full datasets (most of them consisting of 300 records) for testing purposes. Some tests though can use smaller datasets.

>What does the function signature look like? Are you able to create a wrapper
>function that plugs the data from the db to the function that processes it?
>If you do this, could you just unit test the wrapper function?
I'm using a DAL (Data Access Layer) to fill my objects, so it should be possible to create a wrapper that plugs the data, although that's something that I'm trying to prevent because I would have to write extra code (that could of its own contain bugs). Could such a setup not be better be implemented with mock objects / mocking? The problem with mock objects to my knowledge is that I would have to type in the data (in stead of reading them from a database).

>I'm thinking the database / large dataset aspect does not have to be managed by your test,
>but rather a function?
I'm not sure if I completely understand this point.