[TIP] Hi, beginner nose question

[iain duncan]

Hi list, I'm new here, and new to automated testing, and new to nose, so
excuse me if this seems silly.

I've read some intro docs and the Beck book on TDD. I like how easy nose
makes it to setup fixtures, but I'm bothered by one issue:

- setUp and tearDown within a TestClass run before and after each
internal test method, giving the test methods a clean unit test
environment, makes sense for unittests
- module level setup and teardown ( why the capitalization difference? )
run *once* before and after *all* test classes in a module, ( an
asymmetrical relation there )

What if, for functional or integration tests, I want to run some fixture
house keeping once *per* class, before and after all that classes tests?
Say to store counters and what not in the classes namespace as static
variables or class variables? Basically I wish as a naive newbie, that
there was a third layer of setup/teardown. I figured out I could:

- just not put more then one TestClass in a module
- use class methods and get setUp and tearDown to call those class
methods iff on first or last setup

Am I missing something or am I trying something that is just bad
practice? Is there any reason nose could not permit such a thing?

I've been reading blogs of several members on here and exploring your
work ( twill, scotch, nose ) so thank you all!

Iain