[TIP] Multiplatform testing with nose

[Yoni Tsafir]

OK,
So I know a few weeks ago there was a multiplatform related question, but
mine is a bit different.

I'm working on a project that has platform specific code in its working
tree.
No matter what are the reasons, but currently in the same project tree there
is platform specific code for several platforms side by side, and it
currently can't be separated to different trees.

Now, about the unit-tests: pretty simple, each unit-test that can run only
on a specific platform, raises a SkipTest in case you try running it on a
different one (similar to what was suggested here a few weeks back).
Also, notice that some unit-tests may be in a platform specific package, but
can actually run on all packages (because of mocks).

Great.

Now,
I want to be able to run all tests in my project with nose by running
nosetests recursively on the root directory.
What's the problem with that?

The problem is that some of my __init__.py of the windows specific code,
imports win32api, which exists only in windows.
Now from what I could understand, when nose is given a directory rather than
a list of tests, it tries finding tests in all the packages recursively, and
in the process it actually imports all __init__.py of modules, including the
ones that are trying to import other platform specific stuff.

This is a problem, because there are no tests to skip here, and I end up
getting an Error in my test-suite that isn't actually connected to a test.

Now, the way I see handling this right now, is avoiding importing stuff in
__init__.py of packages, and either insert it into the function definitions,
or to other .py files that are imported only explicitly and not from other
__init__.py
I must say I'm not really crazy about this solution.

Other solutions I thought of is to separate my code to different working
trees and run on them (which is a big problem currently),
Or using something like --exclude=windows in nose, but this is bad because
under windows there are unit tests that can be ran on any platform (because
of mocks).

I was wondering if any of you can think of a better way to solve this
annoying problem.

Thanks!
Yoni.
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