[TIP] vcr

[Benji York]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 5:31 AM, Andrea Crotti
<andrea.crotti.0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I just saw this library in action and I think it's great:
>
> https://github.com/myronmarston/vcr
>
> is there anything similar also in Python maybe??

The Zope community used to use tcpwatch
(http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tcpwatch) in a similar way to record
functional tests (http://wiki.zope.org/zope3/fdoctests.html).

The approach was used for a few years, but was ultimately abandoned.  My
recollection is that there were two main issues with the approach: 1)
Teasing out enough intent from a HTTP stream to generate a reasonable
first cut at a test is difficult which required extensive post-recording
editing by a human. 2) Re-recording a test in whole is time consuming,
and re-recording just a part is hard to do (normally lots of
pre-existing state is assumed).

There was a follow-on attempt at in-browser recording of tests that
helped with problem #1 quite a bit; recording clicks and keystrokes
instead of just HTTP requests gets you closer to intent.  It didn't do
too much for #2 though.  The project hasn't been maintained in a few
years: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zope.testrecorder

I haven't looked hard at the link you provided.  Maybe they have found
ways around those issues.
-- 
Benji York