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nose: a discovery-based unittest extension. nose provides extended test discovery and running features for unittest. Basic usage ----------- Use the nosetests script (after installation by setuptools):: nosetests [options] [(optional) test files or directories] In addition to passing command-line options, you may also put configuration options in a .noserc or nose.cfg file in your home directory. These are standard .ini-style config files. Put your nosetests configuration in a [nosetests] section, with the -- prefix removed:: [nosetests] verbosity=3 with-doctest=1 There are several other ways to use the nose test runner besides the `nosetests` script. You may use nose in a test script:: import nose nose.main() If you don't want the test script to exit with 0 on success and 1 on failure (like unittest.main), use nose.run() instead:: import nose result = nose.run() `result` will be true if the test run succeeded, or false if any test failed or raised an uncaught exception. Lastly, you can run nose.core directly, which will run nose.main():: python /path/to/nose/core.py Please see the usage message for the nosetests script for information about how to control which tests nose runs, which plugins are loaded, and the test output. Features -------- Writing tests is easier ======================= nose collects tests from `unittest.TestCase` subclasses, of course. But you can also write simple test functions, and test classes that are not subclasses of `unittest.TestCase`. nose also supplies a number of helpful functions for writing timed tests, testing for exceptions, and other common use cases. See `Writing tests`_ and `Testing tools`_ for more. Running tests is easier ======================= nose collects tests automatically, as long as you follow some simple guidelines for organizing your library and test code. There's no need to manually collect test cases into test suites. Running tests is responsive, since nose begins running tests as soon as the first test module is loaded. See `Finding and running tests`_ for more. Setting up your test environment is easier ========================================== nose supports fixtures at the package, module, class, and test case level, so expensive initialization can be done as infrequently as possible. See Fixtures_ for more. Doing what you want to do is easier =================================== nose has plugin hooks for loading, running, watching and reporting on tests and test runs. If you don't like the default collection scheme, or it doesn't suit the layout of your project, or you need reports in a format different from the unittest standard, or you need to collect some additional information about tests (like code coverage or profiling data), you can write a plugin to do so. See `Writing plugins`_ for more. nose comes with a number of builtin plugins, for instance: * Output capture Unless called with the -s (--nocapture) switch, nose will capture stdout during each test run, and print the captured output only for tests that fail or have errors. The captured output is printed immediately following the error or failure output for the test. (Note that output in teardown methods is captured, but can't be output with failing tests, because teardown has not yet run at the time of the failure.) * Assert introspection When run with the -d (--detailed-errors) switch, nose will try to output additional information about the assert expression that failed with each failing test. Currently, this means that names in the assert expression will be expanded into any values found for them in the locals or globals in the frame in which the expression executed. In other words if you have a test like:: def test_integers(): a = 2 assert a == 4, "assert 2 is 4" You will get output like:: File "/path/to/file.py", line XX, in test_integers: assert a == 4, "assert 2 is 4" AssertionError: assert 2 is 4 >> assert 2 == 4, "assert 2 is 4" Please note that dotted names are not expanded, and callables are not called in the expansion. Setuptools integration ====================== nose may be used with the setuptools_ test command. Simply specify nose.collector as the test suite in your setup file:: setup ( # ... test_suite = 'nose.collector' ) Then to find and run tests, you can run:: python setup.py test When running under setuptools, you can configure nose settings via the environment variables detailed in the nosetests script usage message, or the setup.cfg or ~/.noserc or ~/.nose.cfg config files. Please note that when run under the setuptools test command, some plugins will not be available, including the builtin coverage, and profiler plugins. nose also includes its own setuptools command, ``nosetests``, that provides support for all plugins and command line options. See nose.commands_ for more information about the ``nosetests`` command. .. _setuptools: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools .. _nose.commands: #commands Writing tests ------------- As with py.test_, nose tests need not be subclasses of `unittest.TestCase`. Any function or class that matches the configured testMatch regular expression (`(?:^|[\b_\.-])[Tt]est)` by default -- that is, has test or Test at a word boundary or following a - or _) and lives in a module that also matches that expression will be run as a test. For the sake of compatibility with legacy unittest test cases, nose will also load tests from `unittest.TestCase` subclasses just like unittest does. Like py.test, functional tests will be run in the order in which they appear in the module file. TestCase derived tests and other test classes are run in alphabetical order. .. _py.test: http://codespeak.net/py/current/doc/test.html Fixtures ======== nose supports fixtures (setup and teardown methods) at the package, module, class, and test level. As with py.test or unittest fixtures, setup always runs before any test (or collection of tests for test packages and modules); teardown runs if setup has completed successfully, whether or not the test or tests pass. For more detail on fixtures at each level, see below. Test packages ============= nose allows tests to be grouped into test packages. This allows package-level setup; for instance, if you need to create a test database or other data fixture for your tests, you may create it in package setup and remove it in package teardown once per test run, rather than having to create and tear it down once per test module or test case. To create package-level setup and teardown methods, define setup and/or teardown functions in the `__init__.py` of a test package. Setup methods may be named `setup`, `setup_package`, `setUp`, or `setUpPackage`; teardown may be named `teardown`, `teardown_package`, `tearDown` or `tearDownPackage`. Execution of tests in a test package begins as soon as the first test module is loaded from the test package. Test modules ============ A test module is a python module that matches the testMatch regular expression. Test modules offer module-level setup and teardown; define the method `setup`, `setup_module`, `setUp` or `setUpModule` for setup, `teardown`, `teardown_module`, or `tearDownModule` for teardown. Execution of tests in a test module begins after all tests are collected. Test classes ============ A test class is a class defined in a test module that is either a subclass of `unittest.TestCase`, or matches testMatch. Test classes that don't descend from `unittest.TestCase` are run in the same way as those that do: methods in the class that match testMatch are discovered, and a test case constructed to run each with a fresh instance of the test class. Like `unittest.TestCase` subclasses, other test classes may define setUp and tearDown methods that will be run before and after each test method. Test classes that do not descend from `unittest.TestCase` may also include generator methods, and class-level fixtures. Class level fixtures may be named `setup_class`, `setupClass`, `setUpClass`, `setupAll` or `setUpAll` for set up and `teardown_class`, `teardownClass`, `tearDownClass`, `teardownAll` or `tearDownAll` for teardown and must be class methods. Test functions ============== Any function in a test module that matches testMatch will be wrapped in a `FunctionTestCase` and run as a test. The simplest possible failing test is therefore:: def test(): assert False And the simplest passing test:: def test(): pass Test functions may define setup and/or teardown attributes, which will be run before and after the test function, respectively. A convenient way to do this, especially when several test functions in the same module need the same setup, is to use the provided with_setup decorator:: def setup_func(): # ... def teardown_func(): # ... @with_setup(setup_func, teardown_func) def test(): # ... For python 2.3 or earlier, add the attributes by calling the decorator function like so:: def test(): # ... test = with_setup(setup_func, teardown_func)(test) or by direct assignment:: test.setup = setup_func test.teardown = teardown_func Please note that `with_setup` is useful *only* for test functions, not for test methods in `unittest.TestCase` subclasses or other test classes. For those cases, define `setUp` and `tearDown` methods in the class. Test generators =============== nose supports test functions and methods that are generators. A simple example from nose's selftest suite is probably the best explanation:: def test_evens(): for i in range(0, 5): yield check_even, i, i*3 def check_even(n, nn): assert n % 2 == 0 or nn % 2 == 0 This will result in 4 tests. nose will iterate the generator, creating a function test case wrapper for each tuple it yields. As in the example, test generators must yield tuples, the first element of which must be a callable and the remaining elements the arguments to be passed to the callable. By default, the test name output for a generated test in verbose mode will be the name of the generator function or method, followed by the args passed to the yielded callable. If you want to show a different test name, set the ``description`` attribute of the yielded callable. Setup and teardown functions may be used with test generators. The setup and teardown attributes must be attached to the generator function:: @with_setup(setup_func, teardown_func) def test_generator(): ... yield func, arg, arg ... The setup and teardown functions will be executed for each test that the generator returns. For generator methods, the setUp and tearDown methods of the class (if any) will be run before and after each generated test case. Please note that method generators *are not* supported in `unittest.TestCase` subclasses. Finding and running tests ------------------------- nose, by default, follows a few simple rules for test discovery. * If it looks like a test, it's a test. Names of directories, modules, classes and functions are compared against the testMatch regular expression, and those that match are considered tests. Any class that is a `unittest.TestCase` subclass is also collected, so long as it is inside of a module that looks like a test. * Directories that don't look like tests and aren't packages are not inspected. * Packages are always inspected, but they are only collected if they look like tests. This means that you can include your tests inside of your packages (somepackage/tests) and nose will collect the tests without running package code inappropriately. * When a project appears to have library and test code organized into separate directories, library directories are examined first. * When nose imports a module, it adds that module's directory to sys.path; when the module is inside of a package, like package.module, it will be loaded as package.module and the directory of *package* will be added to sys.path. * If an object defines a __test__ attribute that does not evaluate to True, that object will not be collected, nor will any objects it contains. Be aware that plugins and command line options can change any of those rules. Testing tools ------------- The nose.tools module provides a number of testing aids that you may find useful, including decorators for restricting test execution time and testing for exceptions, and all of the same assertX methods found in `unittest.TestCase` (only spelled in pep08 fashion, so `assert_equal` rather than `assertEqual`). See `nose.tools`_ for a complete list. .. _nose.tools: http://code.google.com/p/python-nose/wiki/TestingTools About the name -------------- * nose is the least silly short synonym for discover in the dictionary.com thesaurus that does not contain the word 'spy'. * Pythons have noses * The nose knows where to find your tests * Nose Obviates Suite Employment Contact the author ------------------ You can email me at jpellerin+nose at gmail dot com. To report bugs, ask questions, or request features, please use the *issues* tab at the Google code site: http://code.google.com/p/python-nose/issues/list. Patches are welcome! Similar test runners -------------------- nose was inspired mainly by py.test_, which is a great test runner, but formerly was not all that easy to install, and is not based on unittest. Test suites written for use with nose should work equally well with py.test, and vice versa, except for the differences in output capture and command line arguments for the respective tools. .. _py.test: http://codespeak.net/py/current/doc/test.html License and copyright --------------------- nose is copyright Jason Pellerin 2005-2008 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA