c# - Moq and throwing a SqlException

Question

I have the following code to test that when a certain name is passed to my method, it throws a SQL exception (there is reason to that one, although it sounds a little odd).

   mockAccountDAL.Setup(m => m.CreateAccount(It.IsAny<string>(), 
"Display Name 2", It.IsAny<string>())).Throws<SqlException>();

However, this won't compile because SqlException's constructor is internal:

'System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException' must be a non-abstract type with a public parameterless constructor in order to use it as parameter 'TException' in the generic type or method 'Moq.Language.IThrows.Throws()'

Now, I could change this to state that it should throw Exception, but that wouldn't work for me, because my method should return one status code if it is a SqlException and another if it is any other exception. That's what my unit test is testing.

Is there any way to achieve this without either changing the logic of the method I'm testing, or not testing this scenario?

Answer 1

If you need test cases for the Number or Message properties of the exception, you could use a builder (which uses reflection) like this:

using System;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;

public class SqlExceptionBuilder
{
    private int errorNumber;
    private string errorMessage;

    public SqlException Build()
    {
        SqlError error = this.CreateError();
        SqlErrorCollection errorCollection = this.CreateErrorCollection(error);
        SqlException exception = this.CreateException(errorCollection);

        return exception;
    }

    public SqlExceptionBuilder WithErrorNumber(int number)
    {
        this.errorNumber = number;
        return this;
    }

    public SqlExceptionBuilder WithErrorMessage(string message)
    {
        this.errorMessage = message;
        return this;
    }

    private SqlError CreateError()
    {
        // Create instance via reflection...
        var ctors = typeof(SqlError).GetConstructors(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
        var firstSqlErrorCtor = ctors.FirstOrDefault(
            ctor =>
            ctor.GetParameters().Count() == 7); // Need a specific constructor!
        SqlError error = firstSqlErrorCtor.Invoke(
            new object[] 
            { 
                this.errorNumber, 
                new byte(), 
                new byte(), 
                string.Empty, 
                string.Empty, 
                string.Empty, 
                new int() 
            }) as SqlError;

        return error;
    }
 
    private SqlErrorCollection CreateErrorCollection(SqlError error)
    {
        // Create instance via reflection...
        var sqlErrorCollectionCtor = typeof(SqlErrorCollection).GetConstructors(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance)[0];
        SqlErrorCollection errorCollection = sqlErrorCollectionCtor.Invoke(new object[] { }) as SqlErrorCollection;

        // Add error...
        typeof(SqlErrorCollection).GetMethod("Add", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).Invoke(errorCollection, new object[] { error });

        return errorCollection;
    }

    private SqlException CreateException(SqlErrorCollection errorCollection)
    {
        // Create instance via reflection...
        var ctor = typeof(SqlException).GetConstructors(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance)[0];
        SqlException sqlException = ctor.Invoke(
            new object[] 
            { 
                // With message and error collection...
                this.errorMessage, 
                errorCollection,
                null,
                Guid.NewGuid() 
            }) as SqlException;

        return sqlException;
    }
}

Then you could have a repository mock (for instance) throw an exception like this (this example uses the Moq library):

using Moq;

var sqlException = 
    new SqlExceptionBuilder().WithErrorNumber(50000)
        .WithErrorMessage("Database exception occured...")
        .Build();
var repoStub = new Mock<IRepository<Product>>(); // Or whatever...
repoStub.Setup(stub => stub.GetById(1))
    .Throws(sqlException);