How to mock an out of process COM server with C#

I am currently working to replace a legacy command line front end on a COM out of process server.

This server is written in C++ and communicates with the front end through COM. For our new front end project, we wanted a standalone integration test harness to run end to end tests. I thought it would have been great to use a mock library (like MOQ) to validate the interaction between the front end and the COM server.

After searching the web, I tried ServicedComponent but I did not manage to make it work … I then found How to develop and out-of-process COM component by using Visual C# in microsoft knowledge base. It is a full blown COM server completely written in C#.

After downloading it, the first thing I tried was to return a mock instead of a concrete object in the class factory

// CSSimpleObject.cs
internal class CSSimpleObjectClassFactory : IClassFactory
{
   public int CreateInstance(IntPtr pUnkOuter, ref Guid riid, out IntPtr ppvObject)
   {
      ...
      if (riid == new Guid(CSSimpleObject.ClassId) ||
         riid == new Guid(COMNative.IID_IDispatch) ||
         riid == new Guid(COMNative.IID_IUnknown))
      {
         // Create the instance of the .NET object
         var simpleObject = new Mock<CSSimpleObject> {CallBase = true};
         simpleObject.SetupGet(x => x.FloatProperty).Returns(666);
         simpleObject.Setup(x => x.HelloWorld()).Returns("Hello, you got pwned !!!");

         ppvObject = Marshal.GetComInterfaceForObject(
            simpleObject.Object, typeof(ICSSimpleObject));
         }
         ...

Launching CSExeCOMClient.vbs test program told me that it worked.

So here is how I eventually integrated this in our test harness :

• I ran tlbimp.exe on the real COM server I wanted to mock
• In CSSimpleObject.cs, I returned a Mock on the interface of the COM component I wanted to mock
• In CSSimpleObject.cs, I removed SimpleObjectsXXX types
• To skip registration and to keep access on the returned mock, I started this mock COM server in a new thread at the beginning of each test
• I tested our new front end in a new process, to make sure we would go through out-of-process COM communication

Edit:

We discovered a problem with this technique when we did not manage to implement events correctly. The problem is with COM and not with the mocking framework because it does not work with a real implementation neither

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