[TIP] runTest?

Dan Stromberg drsalists at gmail.com
Tue Aug 27 12:46:21 PDT 2019


Hi folks.

I'm working on a large Python 3/Python 2 codebase that has several
automated test cases and test classes.  I know Python 2 is going away soon.

We have lots of test* methods in classes that inherit
from unittest.TestCase. Each of those classes also provides a runTest
method.

It's bugging me that the runTest method is getting used, and the test*
methods are getting ignored, unless we call the test* methods from the
runTest method.

In fact, if I rename the runTest method from a test class to something
unused, I get a traceback:
runTest (tests.test_disposable_locks.TestDisposableLocks)
No test ... Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test_runner.py", line 98, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "test_runner.py", line 90, in main
    result = runner.run(test_suite)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/unittest/runner.py", line 176, in run
    test(result)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/unittest/suite.py", line 84, in __call__
    return self.run(*args, **kwds)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/unittest/suite.py", line 122, in run
    test(result)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 653, in __call__
    return self.run(*args, **kwds)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 580, in run
    testMethod = getattr(self, self._testMethodName)
AttributeError: 'TestDisposableLocks' object has no attribute 'runTest'

I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why unittest is
preferring runTest over test*.  Isn't unittest supposed to fall back on
runTest only if there are no test* methods?

Or do I need something like:
suite = unittest.TestLoader().loadTestsFromTestCase(WidgetTestCase)
(from https://docs.python.org/2/library/unittest.html)
?  I tried getting this going with pytest a while back, but eventually set
the project aside a while - maybe that was where I got the idea that
runTest should be ignored if test* methods are present....

I still hope to use pytest with this code at some point, but for now I'd be
happy if the unittest test discovery just worked the way I expect.  My main
goals for switching to pytest is to parallelise the tests, and to stop
having to list "important" tests in a runTest method lest they be ignored.

Also, I'm finding that sometimes raising an exception terminates the
testing for the entire suite, rather than leading to a failed/errored test
and continuing, presumably because "runTest" is "the test", so if it errors
out anywhere, that's it for "that test".  If pytest can help with that,
that'd be awesome.

What can I do to get runTest out of the mix when test* methods are present?

Thanks!
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