Discovery tests failing on very simple scenarios

Question

Let me preface this by saying that I am very unfamiliar with Salesforce. I have written a set of small discovery type tests to try and feel my way through the syntax and how things work, but I am getting stuck with no values coming back from my queries.

@isTest
private class SmartSearchTests {
    //works exactly as expected
    static testMethod void trueIsTrue() {
        System.assertEquals(true, true);
    }

    //works as expected
    static testMethod void trueIsNotTrue() {
        System.assertNotEquals(true, false);
    }

    //Same value 0
    static testMethod void canGetASmallListOfContacts() {
        List<Contact> ccs = [SELECT Id from Contact Limit 10];
        System.assertNotEquals(0, ccs.size());
    }

    //invalid ID field: 0Q0M987654AcTg
    static testMethod void canLoadAQuoteById() {
        Quote q = [SELECT Id from Quote where Id = '0Q0M987654AcTg'];
        System.assertNotEquals(null, q);    
    }
}

I can see that on the 4th test, I am doing something incorrect by trying to use a string as an Id, but I cannot for the life of me firgure out my the third test returns no data. The same is true when I run this test against any built in object type and I know there is data there.

Also, does [SELECT Id from Contact Limit 10] evaluate to a concrete type? For example could I pass that block of code around to other functions, i.e., doSomething(id, [select Id from Account])?

Thanks, Joe

Answer 1

You can find the detailed explanation here: http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_classes_annotation_isTest.htm

The short answer is that unless you specify it, from an apex test you don't have visibility on the org's existing data, therefore, you need to create it first.