Specflow with MVC Model Validation Issue - asp.net-mvc-2

Question

I am using Specflow, nunit and moq to test the default MVC2 application registration as I learn SpecFlow.
I have the following steps for checking if the username and password have not been entered.
Steps
[Given(#"The user has not entered the username")]
public void GivenTheUserHasNotEnteredTheUsername()
{
_registerModel = new RegisterModel
{
UserName = null,
Email = "test#dummy.com",
Password = "test123",
ConfirmPassword = "test123"
};
}
[Given(#"The user has not entered the password")]
public void GivenTheUserHasNotEnteredThePassword()
{
_registerModel = new RegisterModel
{
UserName = "user" + new Random(1000).NextDouble().ToString(),
Email = "test#dummy.com",
Password = string.Empty,
ConfirmPassword = "test123"
};
}
[When(#"He Clicks on Register button")]
public void WhenHeClicksOnRegisterButton ()
{
_controller.ValidateModel(_registerModel);
_result = _controller.Register(_registerModel);
}
[Then(#"He should be shown the error message ""(.*)"" ""(.*)""")]
public void ThenHeShouldBeShownTheErrorMessage(string errorMessage, string field)
{
Assert.IsInstanceOf<ViewResult>(_result);
var view = _result as ViewResult;
Assert.IsNotNull(view);
Assert.IsFalse(_controller.ModelState.IsValid);
Assert.IsFalse(view.ViewData.ModelState.IsValidField(field));
Assert.IsTrue(_controller.ViewData.ModelState.ContainsKey(field));
Assert.AreEqual(errorMessage,
_controller.ModelState[field].Errors[0].ErrorMessage);
}
Extension method to force validation
public static class Extensions
{
public static void ValidateModel<T> ( this Controller controller, T modelObject )
{
if (controller.ControllerContext == null)
controller.ControllerContext = new ControllerContext();
Type type = controller.GetType();
MethodInfo tryValidateModelMethod =
type.GetMethods(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance).Where(
mi => mi.Name == "TryValidateModel" && mi.GetParameters().Count() == 1).First();
tryValidateModelMethod.Invoke(controller, new object[] { modelObject });
}
}`
I do not understand why the password missing test fails on the following lines.
Assert.IsFalse(view.ViewData.ModelState.IsValidField(field));
Assert.IsTrue(_controller.ViewData.ModelState.ContainsKey(field));
I have noticed that the error message being returned is for the Password and ConfirmPassword not matching but I dont understand why for all the other tests, including the Missing Confirm Password test (Identical to the missing Password test) they work fine.
Any ideas?
Features
Scenario: Register should return error if username is missing
Given The user has not entered the username
When He Clicks on Register button
Then He should be shown the error
message "The Username field is required." "username"
Scenario: Register should return error if password is missing
Given The user has not entered the
password
When He Clicks on Register button
Then He should be shown the error message "'Password' must be at least
6 characters long." "Password"
UPDATE
Ok seems the ValidatePasswordLengthAttribute in the Account Model couldn't initilise Membership.Provider as I did not have the connectionstring in my app.config. Is the Pembership.Provider connecting to the membership DB now?
I have added the connection string but now the test passes 50% of the time as it returns two errors:
Password required
Password must be 6 chars long.
The problem is that they are not returned in the same order every time so the test is flaky.
How can I rewrite my scenario and test to account for this? Can I still keep the one "Then" method or do I need to create a new method?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I had to add the connection string the the AccountService to the App.config which nunit uses. This was causing an error on the ValidatePasswordLengthAttribure.
I have updated the Assert which checks for the correct error message to:
Assert.AreEqual(errorMessage,
_controller.ModelState[field].Errors.First(e => e.ErrorMessage == errorMessage).ErrorMessage);
Still unsure about whether the Membership.Provider is hitting the DB