How to properly assert that an exception gets rais

Question

Code:

# coding=utf-8
import pytest


def whatever():
    return 9/0

def test_whatever():
    try:
        whatever()
    except ZeroDivisionError as exc:
        pytest.fail(exc, pytrace=True)

Output:

================================ test session starts =================================
platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 -- py-1.4.20 -- pytest-2.5.2
plugins: django, cov
collected 1 items 

pytest_test.py F

====================================== FAILURES ======================================
___________________________________ test_whatever ____________________________________

    def test_whatever():
        try:
            whatever()
        except ZeroDivisionError as exc:
>           pytest.fail(exc, pytrace=True)
E           Failed: integer division or modulo by zero

pytest_test.py:12: Failed
============================== 1 failed in 1.16 seconds ==============================

How to make pytest print traceback, so I would see where in the whatever function an exception was raised?

Answer 1

Do you mean something like this:

def test_raises():
    with pytest.raises(Exception) as excinfo:   
        raise Exception('some info')
    # these asserts are identical; you can use either one   
    assert execinfo.value.args[0] == 'some info'
    assert str(execinfo.value) == 'some info'

Answer 2

There are two ways to handle these kind of cases in pytest:

• Using pytest.raises function

• Using pytest.mark.xfail decorator

Usage of pytest.raises:

def whatever():
    return 9/0
def test_whatever():
    with pytest.raises(ZeroDivisionError):
        whatever()

Usage of pytest.mark.xfail:

@pytest.mark.xfail(raises=ZeroDivisionError)
def test_whatever():
    whatever()

Output of pytest.raises:

============================= test session starts ============================
platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.10, pytest-3.2.3, py-1.4.34, pluggy-0.4.0 -- 
/usr/local/python_2.7_10/bin/python
cachedir: .cache
rootdir: /home/user, inifile:
collected 1 item

test_fun.py::test_whatever PASSED


======================== 1 passed in 0.01 seconds =============================

Output of pytest.xfail marker:

============================= test session starts ============================
platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.10, pytest-3.2.3, py-1.4.34, pluggy-0.4.0 -- 
/usr/local/python_2.7_10/bin/python
cachedir: .cache
rootdir: /home/user, inifile:
collected 1 item

test_fun.py::test_whatever xfail

======================== 1 xfailed in 0.03 seconds=============================

As the documentation says:

Using pytest.raises is likely to be better for cases where you are testing exceptions your own code is deliberately raising, whereas using @pytest.mark.xfail with a check function is probably better for something like documenting unfixed bugs (where the test describes what “should” happen) or bugs in dependencies.

Answer 3

Better practice will be using a class that inherit unittest.TestCase and running self.assertRaises.

For example:

import unittest


def whatever():
    return 9/0


class TestWhatEver(unittest.TestCase):

    def test_whatever():
        with self.assertRaises(ZeroDivisionError):
            whatever()

Then you would execute it by running:

pytest -vs test_path