I am relatively new to Python. According to unittest.setUp documentation:
setUp()
Method called to prepare the test fixture. This is called immediately before calling the test method; any exception raised by this method will be considered an error rather than a test failure. The default implementation does nothing.
My question about setUp is as follows:
In our testing code base, I have seen that we customized the Python testing framework by inheriting from unittest.TestCase. Originally, unittest.TestCase has names setUp and tearDown.In the customized class, we have setUpTestCase and tearDownTestCase. So each time those two functions will be called instead of those original counterparts.
My questions are:
How are those setUp and tearDown functions being called by the underlying test runner?
Is it required that those functions used to set up test cases should start with setUp and functions used to tear down test cases should start with tearDown? Or it can be named as any valid identifier?
Thank you.
setUp() and tearDown() methods are automatically used when they are available in your classes inheriting from unittest.TestCase.
They should be named setUp() and tearDown(), only those are used when test methods are executed.
Example:
class MyTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
self.setUpMyStuff()
def tearDown(self):
self.tearDownMyStuff()
class TestSpam(MyTestCase):
def setUpMyStuff(self):
# called before execution of every method named test_...
self.cnx = # ... connect to database
def tearDownMyStuff(self):
# called after execution of every method named test_...
self.cnx.close()
def test_get_data(self):
cur = self.cnx.cursor()
...
Related
So, I have fixtures defined in conftest.py file with scope="class" as I want to run them before each test class is invoked. The conftest file is placed inside project root directory for it to be visible to every test module.
Now in one of the test modules, I have another setup function which I want to run once for that module only. But the problem is setup_class() method is called before running fixtures defined in conftest.py. Is this expected? I wanted it to be opposite because I want to use something done in the fixtures defined in conftest. How to do that?
Code -
conftest.py:
#pytest.fixture(scope="class")
def fixture1(request):
#set a
#pytest.fixture(scope="class")
def fixture1(request):
test_1.py:
#pytest.mark.usefixtures("fixture_1", "fixture_2")
class Test1():
#need this to run AFTER the fixture_1 & fixture_2
def setup_class():
#setup
#get a set in fixture_1
def test_1()
.....
I know that I could simply define a fixture in the test file instead of setup_class but then I will have to specify it in arguments of every test method in order it to be invoked by pytest. But suggestions are welcome!
I have exactly the same problem. Only now I have realized that the problem might be taht the setup_class is called before the fixture >-/
I think that this question is similar to this one
Pytest - How to pass an argument to setup_class?
And the problem is mixing the unittest and pytest methods.
I kind of did what they suggested - I ommitted the setup_class and created a new fixture within the particular test file,
calling the fixture in the conftest.py.
It works so far.
M.
The problem is that you can use the result of a fixture only in test function (or method) which is run by pytest. Here I can suggest a workaround. But of course I'm not sure if it suites your needs.
The workaround is to call the function from a test method:
conftest.py
#pytest.fixture(scope='class')
def fixture1():
yield 'MYTEXT'
test_1.py
class Test1:
def setup_class(self, some_var):
print(some_var)
def test_one(self, fixture1):
self.setup_class(fixture1)
Fixtures and setup_class are two different paradigms to initialize test functions (and classes). In this case, mixing the two creates a problem: The class-scoped fixtures run when the individual test functions (methods) run. On the other hand, setup_class runs before they do. Hence, it is not possible to access a fixture value (or fixture-modified state) from setup_class.
One of the solutions is to stop using setup_class entirely and stick with a fixtures-only solution which is the preferred way in pytest nowadays (see the note at the beginning).
# conftest.py or the test file:
#pytest.fixture(scope="class")
def fixture_1(request):
print('fixture_1')
# the test file:
class Test1():
#pytest.fixture(scope="class", autouse=True)
def setup(self, fixture_1, request):
print('Test1.setup')
def test_a(self):
print('Test1.test_a')
def test_b(self):
print('Test1.test_b')
Note that the setup fixture depends on fixture_1 and hence can access it.
I was studying unittest by following the examples here.
In the following code, def test_add() is supposed to be wrapped in class testClass(), but for my curiosity, I didn't encapsulate it.
# class testClass(unittest.TestCase):
def test_add(self):
result = cal_fun.add_fuc(5, 10)
self.assertEqual(result, 15)
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
The result came out in VScode as:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 0 tests in 0.000s
OK
Why was no test run? Why must the def test_add() be wrapped in a class?
Here's an expansion on my initial comment.
The unittest module has a Test Discovery feature/function. When you run it on a directory, it looks for pre-defined structures, definitions, and patterns. Namely:
In order to be compatible with test discovery, all of the test files must be modules or packages (including namespace packages) importable from the top-level directory of the project (this means that their filenames must be valid identifiers).
The basic building blocks of unit testing are test cases — single scenarios that must be set up and checked for correctness. In unittest, test cases are represented by unittest.TestCase instances. To make your own test cases you must write subclasses of TestCase or use FunctionTestCase.
The relevant answer to your question is that test functions must be wrapped in a TestCase. Not simply wrapped in just some "class testClass()" as you said, but the class must specifically inherit from unittest.TestCase. In addition, that assertEqual method is only available as part of a TestCase, because it's a method of the TestCase class. If you somehow got that code of yours to run, self.assertEqual would result in an error. You would have to use plain assert's.
To go into more detail, you will have to read the section on unittest's load_tests Protocol and specifically the loadTestsFromModule(module, pattern=None) method:
Return a suite of all test cases contained in the given module. This method searches module for classes derived from TestCase and creates an instance of the class for each test method defined for the class.
Finally, it's not just about wrapping your test functions in a unittest.TestCase class, your tests must follow some pre-defined patterns:
By default, unittest looks for files matching the pattern test*.py. This is done by the discover(start_dir, pattern='test*.py', top_level_dir=None) method of unittest's TestLoader class, which is "used to create test suites from classes and modules".
By default, unittest looks for methods that start with test (ex. test_function). This is done by the testMethodPrefix attribute of unittest's TestLoader class, which is a "string giving the prefix of method names which will be interpreted as test methods. The default value is 'test'."
If you want some customized behavior, you'll have to override the load_tests protocol.
I'm trying to test an add function that excites in calc.py
import unittest
import calc
class TestCalc(unittest.TestCase):
def test_add(self):
result = calc.add(10,5)
self.assertEqual(result,15)
My question is what does self means in this example
I know that self is an instance of a class.But, can you give me an example of what the value of self would be in my example.
self is a reference to the instance of TestCalc that is instantiated by the test runner from unittest when you run your tests.
More generally, when an object is instantiated and one of its methods is called (such as test_add(), called by unittest's test runner in your case), self is used to refer to the instance the method is called on, allowing access to its other properties and methods (such as assertEqual(), inherited from unittest.TestCase, in your case).
I have a class and I need to test it
class ToBeTested():
def my_method():
pass
I have designed some unittests in python.
import unittest
class MyFirstUnitTest(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
# prepare some data
# run a method
# collect results
def test_one_assumption_about_results(self):
#self.assertEqual(...)
def test_another_assumption_about_results(self):
#self.assertEqual(...)
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
I have designed this code looking at the examples.
Now I do not understand how to interface it the tesing class MyFirstUnitTest with the classe to be tested ToBeTested?
By inheritance?
class MyFirstUnitTest(unittest.TestCase,ToBeTested):
######
By creating a object of class ToBeTested as static member of
MyFirstUnitTest class definition?
class MyFirstUnitTest(unittest.TestCase):
mytestobj=ToBeTested()
def setUp(self):
By creating a object of class ToBeTested within each of the test
cases of MyFirstUnitTest class definition?
class MyFirstUnitTest(unittest.TestCase):
def setUp(self):
###
def test_one():
mytestobj=ToBeTested()
def test_two():
mytestobj=ToBeTested()
please suggest alternatives and why you would prefer any of them
There is a drawback to using inheritance and static member instead of creating a new object for every test: If tests change the state of the object, then the tests influence each other with their side effects. This gets even worse if the order of the test method calls are not guaranteed and changes (say, you rename a test and suddenly a different test case fails - these things have happened before!)
Additionally, having your test case inherit from the SUT (subject under test) means you only get to test one constructor.
I don't see any advantage to having the testcase inherit from the SUT, especially in python where there are no private members. If for some reason inheritance is necessary for the test (which sometimes IS the case), then having a seperate TestAdapter class that inherits and is instantiated by the test is the best practice.
There are other questions with answers which go more in depth:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/366425/making-a-test-fixture-inherit-from-the-sut-class
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/154144/how-to-define-implementation-details
You can create an instance of your class(es) in your setup if it will not have to be reinstantiated.
And if you have to create a new instance in every test then just create a new instance in every test.
I am unit testing mercurial integration and have a test class which currently creates a repository with a file and a clone of that repository in its setUp method and removes them in its tearDown method.
As you can probably imagine, this gets quite performance heavy very fast, especially if I have to do this for every test individually.
So what I would like to do is create the folders and initialize them for mercurial on loading the class, so each and every unittest in the TestCase class can use these repositories. Then when all the tests are run, I'd like to remove them. The only thing my setUp and tearDown methods then have to take care of is that the two repositories are in the same state between each test.
Basically what I'm looking for is a python equivalent of JUnit's #BeforeClass and #AfterClass annotations.
I've now done it by subclassing the TestSuite class, since the standard loader wraps all the test methods in an instance of the TestCase in which they're defined and puts them together in a TestSuite. I have the TestSuite call the before() and after() methods of the first TestCase. This of course means that you can't initialize any values to your TestCase object, but you probably want to do this in your setUp anyway.
The TestSuite looks like this:
class BeforeAfterSuite(unittest.TestSuite):
def run(self, result):
if len(self._tests) < 1:
return unittest.TestSuite.run(self, result)
first_test = self._tests[0]
if "before" in dir(first_test):
first_test.before()
result = unittest.TestSuite.run(self, result)
if "after" in dir(first_test):
first_test.after()
return result
For some slightly more finegrained control I also created the custom TestLoader which makes sure the BeforeAfterSuite is only used to wrap test-method-TestCase objects in, which looks like this:
class BeforeAfterLoader(unittest.TestLoader):
def loadTestsFromTestCase(self, testCaseClass):
self.suiteClass = BeforeAfterSuite
suite = unittest.TestLoader.loadTestsFromTestCase(self, testCaseClass)
self.suiteClass = unittest.TestLoader.suiteClass
return suite
Probably missing here is a try/except block around the before and after which could fail all the testcases in the suite or something.
from the Python unittest documentation :
setUpClass() :
A class method called before tests in an individual class run. setUpClass is called with the class as the only argument and must be decorated as a classmethod():
#classmethod
def setUpClass(cls):
...
New in version 2.7.
tearDownClass() :
A class method called after tests in an individual class have run. tearDownClass is called with the class as the only argument and must be decorated as a classmethod():
#classmethod
def tearDownClass(cls):
...