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Daniel Frantík edited this page Aug 29, 2026 · 2 revisions

Unit testing without a router (TikFakeConnection)

TikFakeConnection stands in for a real ITikConnection so your tests run in CI with no hardware. It intercepts at CallCommandSync, which means the whole call stack above it — commands, parameters and the O/R mapper — runs through real library code, and only the wire is replaced. Use it to test the code that uses tik4net; to watch a real exchange instead, see Communication debugging.

⚠️ Alpha — ships in v4.0.0-alpha: tested and functional, but the API may still change before the final 4.0 release. See Connection types & capabilities.

Add the tik4net.testing NuGet package to your test project:

dotnet add package tik4net.testing

var conn = new TikFakeConnection()
    .WithEntities(new IpAddress { Address = "10.0.0.1/24", Interface = "ether1" }.WithId("*1"))
    .WithScalarResponse(rows => rows.First() == "/ip/address/add", "*2")
    .WithNonQuery(rows => rows.First() == "/ip/address/set");

var list = conn.LoadAll<IpAddress>();
Assert.AreEqual(1, list.Count());

One page per API level

The fake works at all three levels, and each has its own page of recipes:

Capabilities and async code

TikFakeConnection declares Crud | Listen | AsyncCommands | SafeMode — the third means code that awaits Execute*Async can be unit-tested against it. The fake's commands complete synchronously, so an await returns immediately and the test needs no timing tricks. It also implements ITikRawSentenceConnection (so CallCommandSync works) and ITikSafeModeConnection (SafeModeTake/Release/Unroll/Get are recorded via counters, not performed against a real router — see Safe Mode); it does not implement ITikTaggedConnection, since a fake has no wire to tag.

Assign Capabilities to test the other branch — what your code does against a transport that lacks something:

var conn = new TikFakeConnection { Capabilities = TikConnectionCapability.Crud };
// cmd.ExecuteListAsync() now throws TikConnectionCapabilityNotSupportedException here,
// exactly as it would over Telnet — so the synchronous fallback gets exercised.

The default set is deliberately not "everything": a fake that claims every capability cannot be used to test the fail-closed paths, and claiming one it does not implement (RawCommand) would only move the failure later. Note it does not report CancelInFlight either — there is no in-flight request to abort. Clear SafeMode from Capabilities to test the branch where a transport has no safe mode (e.g. REST).

See also

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