Since Microsoft decided to remove the creation of private accessors for unit tests in Visual Studio 2012, one have to get familiar with the usage of Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting.PrivateObject.

This class offers an easy way to call methods, independent from their visibility, via reflection. The method is PrivateObject.Invoke. This method saves you from getting the MethodInfo before being able to invoke an object’s ‘hidden’ method.

Sometimes methods do have out parameters. I was asking myself how to define these parameters when calling a method via reflection. When the method returns, I wanted to be able to read the value set by the method called.

I expected somthing tricky. But the solution is very simple: Just add an element to the array of parameters, and after the call access the appropriate element of the array.

The code goes like this:

ClassWithPrivateMethods instance = new ClassWithPrivateMethods();

PrivateObject privateObject = new PrivateObject(instance);

object[] args 
  = new object[] { "some value", null /* placeholder for out param */ };

privateObject.Invoke("PrivateMethodHavingOutParameter", args);

var outParameterValue = args[1];