Look, there's no easy way to do this. I'm working on a project that is inherently multithreaded. Events come in from the operating system and I have to process them concurrently.
The simplest way to deal with testing complex, multithreaded application code is this: If it's too complex to test, you're doing it wrong. If you have a single instance that has multiple threads acting upon it, and you can't test situations where these threads step all over each other, then your design needs to be redone. It's both as simple and as complex as this.
There are many ways to program for multithreading that avoids threads running through instances at the same time. The simplest is to make all your objects immutable. Of course, that's not usually possible. So you have to identify those places in your design where threads interact with the same instance and reduce the number of those places. By doing this, you isolate a few classes where multithreading actually occurs, reducing the overall complexity of testing your system.
But you have to realize that even by doing this, you still can't test every situation where two threads step on each other. To do that, you'd have to run two threads concurrently in the same test, then control exactly what lines they are executing at any given moment. The best you can do is simulate this situation. But this might require you to code specifically for testing, and that's at best a half step towards a true solution.
Probably the best way to test code for threading issues is through static analysis of the code. If your threaded code doesn't follow a finite set of thread safe patterns, then you might have a problem. I believe Code Analysis in VS does contain some knowledge of threading, but probably not much.
Look, as things stand currently (and probably will stand for a good time to come), the best way to test multithreaded apps is to reduce the complexity of threaded code as much as possible. Minimize areas where threads interact, test as best as possible, and use code analysis to identify danger areas.
Update:
Some 10 years later perhaps the best way to test a private method, or any inaccessible member, is via @Jailbreak from the Manifold framework.
@Jailbreak Foo foo = new Foo();
// Direct, *type-safe* access to *all* foo's members
foo.privateMethod(x, y, z);
foo.privateField = value;
This way your code remains type-safe and readable. No design compromises, no overexposing methods and fields for the sake of tests.
If you have somewhat of a legacy Java application, and you're not allowed to change the visibility of your methods, the best way to test private methods is to use reflection.
Internally we're using helpers to get/set private and private static variables as well as invoke private and private static methods. The following patterns will let you do pretty much anything related to the private methods and fields. Of course, you can't change private static final variables through reflection.
Method method = TargetClass.getDeclaredMethod(methodName, argClasses);
method.setAccessible(true);
return method.invoke(targetObject, argObjects);
And for fields:
Field field = TargetClass.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
field.setAccessible(true);
field.set(object, value);
Notes:
1. TargetClass.getDeclaredMethod(methodName, argClasses) lets you look into private methods. The same thing applies for
getDeclaredField.
2. The setAccessible(true) is required to play around with privates.
Best Solution
What is unit testing?
Unit testing simply verifies that individual units of code (mostly functions) work as expected. Usually you write the test cases yourself, but some can be automatically generated.
The output from a test can be as simple as a console output, to a "green light" in a GUI such as NUnit, or a different language-specific framework.
Performing unit tests is designed to be simple, generally the tests are written in the form of functions that will determine whether a returned value equals the value you were expecting when you wrote the function (or the value you will expect when you eventually write it - this is called Test Driven Development when you write the tests first).
How do you perform unit tests?
Imagine a very simple function that you would like to test:
The unit test code would look something like this:
When you run the tests, you will be informed that these tests have passed. Now that you've built and run the tests, you know that this particular function, or unit, will perform as you expect.
Now imagine another developer comes along and changes the
CombineNumbers()function for performance, or some other reason:When the developer runs the tests that you have created for this very simple function, they will see that the first
Assertfails, and they now know that the build is broken.When should you perform unit tests?
They should be done as often as possible. When you are performing tests as part of the development process, your code is automatically going to be designed better than if you just wrote the functions and then moved on. Also, concepts such as Dependency Injection are going to evolve naturally into your code.
The most obvious benefit is knowing down the road that when a change is made, no other individual units of code were affected by it if they all pass the tests.