Inherited test class from generic base is ignored in MSTest

Question

When creating a generic base test class in MSTest, and inheriting from it, I'm unable to run the tests of all the inheriting classes.

BaseDependencyPropertyFactoryTest is located in the Whathecode.PresentationFramework.Tests assembly. It is the generic base class. (BaseDependencyPropertyFactoryTest<TTestClass>)

Both assemblies have a test inheriting from this base class, called DependencyPropertyFactoryTest. All the inherited class does is passing a specific type argument.

[TestClass]
public class DependencyPropertyFactoryTest
    : BaseDependencyPropertyFactoryTest<ASpecificClass>
{
}

Only the inheriting test located in the same assembly as the base class seems to run. The inherited test in the Whathecode.PresentationFramework.Aspects.Tests assembly seems to be ignored entirely.

What am I doing wrong? When desired I could upload all the required source code, but you will need PostSharp for the aspects assembly.

---

As a test, I tried adding a test to the inherited test class in the aspects assembly, which calls all the tests in the base test class.

[TestMethod]
public void AllBaseTests()
{
    ClrGetterSetterTest();
    DependencyPropertyGetterSetterTest();
}

This gives the following result. Strangely enough this test is executed! For now this might work as a way to at least run them, but of course I don't want to edit this test each time I add extra tests in the base class.

Why are those base tests skipped, and why the indication 'Aborted'?

Answer 1

The cause of this doesn't have to do with generics, but with the tests being in different assemblies.

A Microsoft Connect suggestion describes the problem: "Visual Studio Test (MSTest) and lack of Inheritance support for base classes that resides in different assemblies." It is marked as 'fixed', but doesn't seem to be fixed in Visual Studio 2010 yet, perhaps it still needs to be released?

There is one interesting workaround to this problem:

You can work around this problem by compiling the source file containing the base class into all test projects that wish to derive from that base class. Add the item as a "link" so that you don't end up with multiple copies of the source file for the base class.

This worked for me, and I don't find the workaround too ugly.