Go ahead, mock VBA

Rubberduck has been offering IDE-integrated unit test since day one.

But let’s face it: unit testing is hard. And unit testing VBA code that pops a MsgBox isn’t only hard, it’s outright impossible! Why? Because it defeats the purpose of an automated test: you don’t want to be okaying message boxes (or worse, clicking No when the test needed you to click Yes), you want to run the tests and watch them all turn green!

So you had to implement some kind of wrapper interface, and write code that doesn’t call MsgBox directly – like the D of SOLID says, depend on abstractions, not on concrete types.

So you’d code against some IMsgBox wrapper interface:

Option Explicit
Public Function Show(ByVal prompt As String, _
 Optional ByVal buttons As VbMsgBoxStyle = vbOKOnly, _
 Optional ByVal title As String = vbNullString, _
 Optional ByVal helpFile As String, _
 Optional ByVal context As Long) As VbMsgBoxResult
End Function

And then you’d implement the concrete type:

Option Explicit
Implements IMsgBox
Private Function IMsgBox_Show(ByVal prompt As String, _
 Optional ByVal buttons As VbMsgBoxStyle = vbOKOnly, _
 Optional ByVal title As String = vbNullString, _
 Optional ByVal helpFile As String, _
 Optional ByVal context As Long) As VbMsgBoxResult
    IMsgBox_Show = MsgBox(prompt, buttons, title, helpFile, context)
End Function

Now that gets you compilable VBA code, but if you want to write a test for code where the result of a MsgBox call can influence the tested method’s code path, you need to make a fake implementation, and inject that FakeMsgBox into your code, so that your code calls not the real MsgBox function, but the fake implementation.

And if you want to verify that the code setup a vbYesNo message box with the company name as a title, you need to adapt your fake message box and make it configurable.

In other words, setting up fakes by hand is a pain in the neck.

So this is where Rubberduck tests are going:

'@TestMethod
Public Sub TestMethod1()
    On Error GoTo TestFail
    
    Fakes.MsgBox.Returns 42
    Debug.Print MsgBox("Flabbergasted yet?", vbYesNo, "Rubberduck") 'prints 42
    
    With Fakes.MsgBox.Verify
        .Parameter "prompt", "Flabbergasted yet?"
        .Parameter "buttons", vbYesNo
        .Parameter "title", "Rubberduck"
    End With
TestExit: 
    Exit Sub
TestFail: 
    Assert.Fail "Test raised an error: #" & Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description
End Sub

Soon. Very soon. Like, next release soon, Rubberduck will begin to allow unit test code to turn the actual MsgBox into a fake one, by setting up a Rubberduck fake.

So yeah, we’re mocking VBA. All of it.

To Be Continued…