How to mock HttpClient-C#

What is Mock?

Mocking is a process when writing the unit test case for the unit with an external dependency like a Network request or database call. The purpose of the mocking is to isolate the external dependency and focus on the code being tested.

What is HttpClient?

HttpClient Is the base class for sending the request and receiving the response from the server. You can read more about this here

Let’s consider you have the following class, and you want to test this class using Nunit/xUnit. You can see this class is using HttpClient, which is an external dependency. Let’s see the definition of HttpClient.

    public class HttpClient : HttpMessageInvoker
    {
        //
        // Summary:
        //     Initializes a new instance of the System.Net.Http.HttpClient class using a System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler
        //     that is disposed when this instance is disposed.
        public HttpClient();
        //
        // Summary:
        //     Initializes a new instance of the System.Net.Http.HttpClient class with the specified
        //     handler. The handler is disposed when this instance is disposed.
        //
        // Parameters:
        //   handler:
        //     The HTTP handler stack to use for sending requests.
        //
        // Exceptions:
        //   T:System.ArgumentNullException:
        //     The handler is null.
        public HttpClient(HttpMessageHandler handler);
        ...
   }

For unit tests, you don’t mock HttpClient. Instead, you mock HttpMessageHandler. You can learn more about how to mock Protected member here

public class RestClient
{
	private readonly HttpClient _httpClient;
	public RestClient(HttpClient httpClient)
	{
		_httpClient = httpClient;
		_httpClient.BaseAddress = new Uri("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/");
	}
	public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> GetSomethingRemoteAsync(string url)
	{
		var result = await _httpClient.GetAsync("users");
		return result;
	}
}

Let’s create a class TestHelper.cs and add one method named GetFakeHttpClient and paste the following code snippet

public class TestHelper
{

	public static Mock<HttpMessageHandler> GetFakeHttpClient()
	{

		// ARRANGE
		var handlerMock = new Mock<HttpMessageHandler>(MockBehavior.Strict);
		handlerMock
		   .Protected()
				.Setup<Task<HttpResponseMessage>>("SendAsync", ItExpr.IsAny<HttpRequestMessage>(), ItExpr.IsAny<CancellationToken>())
			   .ReturnsAsync(new HttpResponseMessage()
			   {
				   StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK,
				   Content = new StringContent("[{'id':1,'name':'Leanne Graham','email':'example@test.com'}]"),
			   }).Verifiable();
		return handlerMock;

	}
}

Now you can use the Fake HttpClient in your unit test, as shown below.

public class RestClientTest
{


	[Fact]
	public async Task It_Should_Return_Response_If_Input_Is_Valid()
	{
		var handlerMock = TestHelper.GetFakeHttpClient();
		var httpClient = new HttpClient(handlerMock.Object)
		{
			BaseAddress = new Uri("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/"),
		};

		var restClient = new RestClient(httpClient);

		// ACT
		var result = await restClient
		   .GetSomethingRemoteAsync("users");

		Assert.Equal(HttpStatusCode.OK,result.StatusCode);
		Assert.NotNull(result);

		var expectedUri = new Uri("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users");

		handlerMock.Protected().Verify(
		   "SendAsync",
		   Times.Exactly(2), // we expected a single external request
		   ItExpr.Is<HttpRequestMessage>(req =>
			  req.Method == HttpMethod.Get
			  && req.RequestUri == expectedUri
		   ),
		   ItExpr.IsAny<CancellationToken>()
		);
	}
}