How to use py.test fixtures without importing them - python

Say I have a file fixtures.py that defines a simple py.test fixture called foobar.
Normally I would have to import that fixture to use it (including all of the sub-fixtures), like this:
from fixtures import foobar
def test_bazinga(foobar):
Note that I also don't want to use a star import.
How do I import this fixture so that I can just write:
import fixtures
def test_bazinga(foobar):
Is this even possible? It seems like it, because py.test itself defines exactly such fixtures (e.g. monkeypatch).

Fixtures and their visibility are a bit odd in pytest. They don't require importing, but if you defined them in a test_*.py file, they'll only be available in that file.
You can however put them in a (project- or subfolder-wide) conftest.py to use them in multiple files.
pytest-internal fixtures are simply defined in a core plugin, and thus available everywhere. In fact, a conftest.py is basically nothing else than a per-directory plugin.
You can also run py.test --fixtures to see where fixtures are coming from.

Related

session scope with pytest-mock

I'm looking for example of how to use the session-scoped "session-mocker" fixture of the pytest-mock plugin.
It's fairly clear how to modify the example the docs provide to use it in a particular test:
def test_foo(session_mocker):
session_mocker.patch('os.remove')
etc...
But I'm baffled as to where and how this global fixture should be initialized. Say, for example, that I want to mock "os.remove" for ALL of my tests. Do I set this up in confftest.py and, if so, how do I do it?
You use it in a fixture with a scope of session. The best place to put it would be conftest.py. That's mainly to make it obvious to other programmers that this fixture exists and what it might be doing. That's important because this fixture will effect other tests that might not necessarily know about this fixture or even want it.
I wouldn't recommend mocking something for the duration of a session. Tests, classes or even modules, yes. But not sessions.
For instance, the following test test_normal passes or fails depending on whether test_mocked was run in the same session or not. Since they're in the same "file", it's much easier to spot the problem. But these tests could be located in different test files, that do not appear related, and yet if both tests were run in the same session then the problem would occur.
import pytest
# could be in conftest.py
#pytest.fixture(scope='session')
def myfixture(session_mocker):
session_mocker.patch('sys.mymock', create=True)
def test_mocked(myfixture):
import sys
assert hasattr(sys, 'mymock')
def test_normal():
import sys
assert not hasattr(sys, 'mymock')
Instead, just create a fixture that is scoped for test, class or module, and include it directly in the test file. That way the behaviour is contained to just the set of tests that need it. Mocks are cheap to create, so having the mock recreated for every test is no big deal. It may even be beneficial, as the mock will be reset for each test.
Save session fixtures for things that are expensive to setup, and which have no state, or that the tests do not change its state (eg. a database that is used as a template to create a fresh database that each test will run against).

Does Python's unittest have a global setUp for an entire TestSuite?

I'm a bit new to Python's unittest library and I'm currently looking at setting up my Flask server before running any of my integration tests. I know that the unittest.TestCase class allows you to use setUp() before every test cases in the class. I also know that the same class has another method called setUpClass() that runs only once for the entire class.
What I'm actually interested is trying to figure out how to do something similar like setUpClass(), but done on an entire unittest.TestSuite. However, I'm having no luck at it.
Sure, I could set up the server for every TestCase, but I would like to avoid doing this.
There is an answer on a separate question that suggests that by overriding unittest.TestResult's startTestRun(), you could have a set up function that covers the entire test suite. However, I've tried to passed in the custom TestResult object into unittest. TextTestRunner with no success.
So, how exactly can I do a set up for an entire test suite?
This is not well documented, but I recently needed to do this as well.
The docs mention that TestResult.startTestRun is "Called once before any tests are executed."
As you can see, in the implementation, the method doesn't do anything.
I tried subclassing TestResult and all kinds of things. I couldn't make any of that work, so I ended up monkey patching the class.
In the __init__.py of my test package, I did the following:
import unittest
OLD_TEST_RUN = unittest.result.TestResult.startTestRun
def startTestRun(self):
# whatever custom code you want to run exactly once before
# any of your tests runs goes here:
...
# just in case future versions do something in this method
# we'll call the existing method
OLD_TEST_RUN(self)
unittest.result.TestResult.startTestRun = startTestRun
There is also a stopTestRun method if you need to run cleanup code after all tests have run.
Note that this does not make a separate version of TestResult. The existing one is used by the unittest module as usual. The only thing we've done is surgically graft on our custom implementation of startTestRun

pytest: Reset mocks between individual files

EDIT: While any testing recommendations are truly appreciated, I'm wondering specifically if there'a way that pytest can enforce the isolation for me, rather than relying on myself always remembering to clean up mocks.
Does pytest support "resetting" process state between individual Python files, or otherwise isolating test files from one another?
Our CI used to invoke pytest on individual files, like this:
pytest file1.py
pytest file2.py
...
It now invokes pytest once for all files, like this:
pytest file1.py file2.py ...
We ran into trouble when some test files (e.g. file1.py) performed module-level mocks. For example (simplified):
def setup_module():
patch("path.to.some.module.var", Mock()).start()
(There is no corresponding teardown_module.)
This works fine when pytest is called on files one-at-a-time. But when it runs against multiple files, any mocks made by previously executed test code persist into subsequent test code. Is there any way to "reset" this state between files? E.g., does pytest support a way to invoke each file's tests in a separate process? (Looked at the pytest docs but found nothing like this.)
For now, we're adding teardown_module() functions that call patch.stopall(), but it would be nice to have the added security of pytest implicitly isolating our test files from one another.
The standard way to do this is probably to use a fixture with a context manager instead of the setup/teardown construct:
#pytest.fixture(scope="module", autouse=True)
def patch_var():
with mock.patch("path.to.some.module.var"):
yield
This will end the patching after the test goes out of module scope.
It has the same effect as the less convenient:
#pytest.fixture(scope="module", autouse=True)
def patch_var():
patcher = mock.patch("path.to.some.module.var")
patcher.start()
yield
patcher.stop()
Note that you are responsible to stop patching yourself if you use start on the constructed patcher object. It is always more secure to use the context manager or the patch decorator (if applied to a single test) for patching.
UPDATE:
As far as I know, there is no way to unconditionally isolate the test modules completely from one another if executed in the same test run. This is what the concept of fixture scopes is for.
A fixture shall always be written with automatic cleanup. For patching, you use the context manager (as shown above) which does the cleanup for you, other things you have to cleanup yourself after the yield. If you want to have global changes over the whole test run, you use session-scoped fixtures. If you want to isolate test modules, you use module-scoped fixtures, and for test class or single test isolation you use class- or function-scoped fixtures.

multiple testcase classes in the same module, how to run them as whole or single test with pytest

I have a module that I use to hold specific testcase classes. I would like to implement an easy way to run them all or one by one.
I did notice that if I run pytest passing the whole module, all the test will run; but I would like also to pass one single testcase, if I want to.
Is this possible or do I need one module per testcase class?
Thanks to Chanda for giving me a solution.
test markers are very useful! Also another way to run a specific test class is to have the -k option, which will run only a specific testcase class in a module, skipping the others

How to organize fixtures when using pytest

Fixtures tend to be small and reusable. Given that a specific fixture can rely on other fixtures
#pytest.fixture
def Account(db, memcache):
...
I would like to organize my fixtures in modules, and import them in a specific test-file like so (e.g.)
from .fixtures.models import Account
Unfortunately this does not seem to work. Instead I always have to import all subordinate fixtures too, e.g.
from .fixtures.models import Account, db, memcache
What is the better approach to have fine-grained small, reusable fixtures and make them accessible on a module level. (conftest works on the package/directory level.)
Usually i don't recommend this but if you have modules containing a specific set of fixtures (Which depend on each other), then maybe from .fixtures.models import * would be workable? I can't think of another generic solution at the moment which would avoid knowing the underlying fixture dependencies in the importing test module.

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