Can I use PEX with Visual Studio 2012?

Question

I don't see any current information about the plans to make Pex work on Visual Studio 2012.

Scowl

Possible duplicate of how-to-use-pex-in-visual-studio-2012 – Netty

Answer 1

I've tried to contact Microsoft, but I got no answer. So I decided to email Mary Jo Foley and here is what she got:

Here’s your answer from a MS spokesperson on Visual Studio:

“We expect to have an update of Pex compatible with Visual Studio 2012/.NET 4.5 sometime in early 2013. An academic license would be first, a commercial license would come later.”

Raving

To be honest, I wouldn't be inclined to take much notice of that, the project hasn't had a public release for over 2 years, so to all intents-and-purposes it's dead. – Feuilleton

It seems that they are not going to release it in 2013. – Ur

Answer 2

New Pex extension for Visual Studio 2012 Portable Libraries called Code Digger. Currently Code Digger only works with Portable Class Libraries and does not automatically create unit tests projects like the original PEX. The PEX team has said they will have new releases that adds functionality and make it work outside of Portable Subset although there is not a timeframe for that.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nikolait/archive/2013/04/23/introducing-code-digger-an-extension-for-vs2012.aspx

Excerpt from Blog:

"Under the hood, Code Digger uses the Pex engine and Microsoft Research’s Z3 constraint solver to systematically analyze all branches in the code, trying to generate a test suite that achieves high code coverage. Working together with Peter Provost from the Visual Studio product group, we tried to create a really simple user interface. We want to bring the idea of code exploration to every programmer’s fingertips. This is different from the Pex Power Tools where we gave you many options to configure, and you had to embrace the idea of (Parameterized) Unit Testing to get all benefits. Code Digger is not a full replacement of Pex, it is merely the first extension that the Pex team ships for Visual Studio 2012 – stay tuned for more."

Whatnot

Code Digger has so limited functionality, that it is almost useless. – Netty

@MichaelFreidgeim So you gave me a down vote because you don't like their new tool? The information I provided is correct so why down vote. Also as the PEX team states they will have more releases that add functionality. – Whatnot

The question was is PEX available under VS 2012. Code Digger is not the PEX, it is a small subset of PEX functionality. If you will change the answer to highlight, what Code Digger can or can't do compare to the full PEX 2010, I will upvote your answer. – Netty

Answer 3

Pex and Moles is provided as Fakes in Visual Studio Ultimate and recently Visual Studio Premium sadly not in the other VS Editions. We can always hope.

Castorina

Fakes is a replacement of Moles only. Neither have the features of PEX. – Whatnot