NUnit Test Adapter for Visual Studio 11

The NUnit Test Adapter allows you to run NUnit tests inside Visual Studio. The current release, version 0.90, only works with the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview, which is available for download from Microsoft. Earlier releases of Visual Studio did not have the ability to recognize tests built with Open Source testing frameworks like NUnit.

Installation

The easiest way to install the NUnit Test Adapter is using the Extension Manager within Visual Studio. Follow these steps:

  1. From within Visual Studio 11, select Tools | Extension Manager.
  2. In the left panel of the Extension Manager, select Online Extensions.
  3. Locate the NUnit Test Adapter in the center panel and highlight it.
  4. Click 'Download' and follow the instructions.

Use the Extension Manager to ensure that the NUnit Test Adapter is enabled.

Usage

In preparation for using the test adapter, make sure that the Unit Test Explorer is shown in your window. If you don't see it, use View | Other Windows | Unit Test Explorer to show it and position the window where you would like it within Visual Studio.

When you initially open a solution, no tests will be displayed. After compiling the assemblies in the solution, Visual Studio will interact with the NUnit Test Adapter to discover tests and a list of them will be shown in the Unit Test Explorer.

Click on Run All Tests in the Unit Test Explorer to run all the tests. You may also select one or more tests in the list and run them by right-clicking and using the context menu.

The context menu also contains entries for debugging tests and for navigating to the source code of a test.

Known Problems

  1. There is no test status corresponding to NUnit's Inconclusive result, so tests with this result are reported as Not Run.
  2. Test cases appear in a flat list, without any grouping by fixture or namespace. This can make it hard to select a group of related tests to be run. It is, however, relatively easy to rerun all failing tests.
  3. Theories are reported as individual cases, rather as a single unit.
  4. Startup performance is rather poor in this release.

Reporting Problems

Until a separate project is created, bugs should be reported using the NUnit bug list.