How to run unittest discover from “python setup.py

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to get python setup.py test to run the equivalent of python -m unittest discover. I don't want to use a run_tests.py script and I don't want to use any external test tools (like nose or py.test). It's OK if the solution only works on python 2.7.

In setup.py, I think I need to add something to the test_suite and/or test_loader fields in config, but I can't seem to find a combination that works correctly:

config = {
    'name': name,
    'version': version,
    'url': url,
    'test_suite': '???',
    'test_loader': '???',
}

Is this possible using only unittest built into python 2.7?

FYI, my project structure looks like this:

project/
  package/
    __init__.py
    module.py
  tests/
    __init__.py
    test_module.py
  run_tests.py <- I want to delete this
  setup.py

Update: This is possible with unittest2 but I want find something equivalent using only unittest

From https://pypi.python.org/pypi/unittest2

unittest2 includes a very basic setuptools compatible test collector. Specify test_suite = 'unittest2.collector' in your setup.py. This starts test discovery with the default parameters from the directory containing setup.py, so it is perhaps most useful as an example (see unittest2/collector.py).

For now, I'm just using a script called run_tests.py, but I'm hoping I can get rid of this by moving to a solution that only uses python setup.py test.

Here's the run_tests.py I'm hoping to remove:

import unittest

if __name__ == '__main__':

    # use the default shared TestLoader instance
    test_loader = unittest.defaultTestLoader

    # use the basic test runner that outputs to sys.stderr
    test_runner = unittest.TextTestRunner()

    # automatically discover all tests in the current dir of the form test*.py
    # NOTE: only works for python 2.7 and later
    test_suite = test_loader.discover('.')

    # run the test suite
    test_runner.run(test_suite)

Answer 1

One possible solution is to simply extend the test command for distutilsand setuptools/distribute. This seems like a total kluge and way more complicated than I would prefer, but seems to correctly discover and run all the tests in my package upon running python setup.py test. I'm holding off on selecting this as the answer to my question in hopes that someone will provide a more elegant solution :)

(Inspired by https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/goodpractices.html#integrating-with-setuptools-python-setup-py-test-pytest-runner)

Example setup.py:

try:
    from setuptools import setup
except ImportError:
    from distutils.core import setup

def discover_and_run_tests():
    import os
    import sys
    import unittest

    # get setup.py directory
    setup_file = sys.modules['__main__'].__file__
    setup_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(setup_file))

    # use the default shared TestLoader instance
    test_loader = unittest.defaultTestLoader

    # use the basic test runner that outputs to sys.stderr
    test_runner = unittest.TextTestRunner()

    # automatically discover all tests
    # NOTE: only works for python 2.7 and later
    test_suite = test_loader.discover(setup_dir)

    # run the test suite
    test_runner.run(test_suite)

try:
    from setuptools.command.test import test

    class DiscoverTest(test):

        def finalize_options(self):
            test.finalize_options(self)
            self.test_args = []
            self.test_suite = True

        def run_tests(self):
            discover_and_run_tests()

except ImportError:
    from distutils.core import Command

    class DiscoverTest(Command):
        user_options = []

        def initialize_options(self):
                pass

        def finalize_options(self):
            pass

        def run(self):
            discover_and_run_tests()

config = {
    'name': 'name',
    'version': 'version',
    'url': 'http://example.com',
    'cmdclass': {'test': DiscoverTest},
}

setup(**config)

Answer 2

Another less than ideal solution slightly inspired by http://hg.python.org/unittest2/file/2b6411b9a838/unittest2/collector.py

Add a module that returns a TestSuite of discovered tests. Then configure setup to call that module.

project/
  package/
    __init__.py
    module.py
  tests/
    __init__.py
    test_module.py
  discover_tests.py
  setup.py

Here's discover_tests.py:

import os
import sys
import unittest

def additional_tests():
    setup_file = sys.modules['__main__'].__file__
    setup_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(setup_file))
    return unittest.defaultTestLoader.discover(setup_dir)

And here's setup.py:

try:
    from setuptools import setup
except ImportError:
    from distutils.core import setup

config = {
    'name': 'name',
    'version': 'version',
    'url': 'http://example.com',
    'test_suite': 'discover_tests',
}

setup(**config)

Answer 3

If you use py27+ or py32+, the solution is pretty simple:

test_suite="tests",

Answer 4

You don't need config to get this working. There are basically two main ways to do it:

The quick way

Rename your test_module.py to module_test.py (basically add _test as a suffix to tests for a particular module), and python will find it automatically. Just make sure to add this to setup.py:

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
    ...
    test_suite = 'tests',
    ...
)

The long way

Here's how to do it with your current directory structure:

project/
  package/
    __init__.py
    module.py
  tests/
    __init__.py
    test_module.py
  run_tests.py <- I want to delete this
  setup.py

Under tests/__init__.py, you want to import the unittest and your unit test script test_module, and then create a function to run the tests. In tests/__init__.py, type in something like this:

import unittest
import test_module

def my_module_suite():
    loader = unittest.TestLoader()
    suite = loader.loadTestsFromModule(test_module)
    return suite

The TestLoader class has other functions besides loadTestsFromModule. You can run dir(unittest.TestLoader) to see the other ones, but this one is the simplest to use.

Since your directory structure is such, you'll probably want the test_module to be able to import your module script. You might have already done this, but just in case you didn't, you could include the parent path so that you can import the package module and the module script. At the top of your test_module.py, type:

import os, sys
sys.path.append(os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '..')))

import unittest
import package.module
...

Then finally, in setup.py, include the tests module and run the command you created, my_module_suite:

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
    ...
    test_suite = 'tests.my_module_suite',
    ...
)

Then you just run python setup.py test.

Here is a sample someone made as a reference.

Answer 5

Python's standard library unittest module supports discovery (in Python 2.7 and later, and Python 3.2 and later). If you can assume those minimum versions, then you can just add the discover command line argument to the unittest command.

Only a small tweak is needed to setup.py:

import setuptools.command.test
from setuptools import (find_packages, setup)

class TestCommand(setuptools.command.test.test):
    """ Setuptools test command explicitly using test discovery. """

    def _test_args(self):
        yield 'discover'
        for arg in super(TestCommand, self)._test_args():
            yield arg

setup(
    ...
    cmdclass={
        'test': TestCommand,
    },
)

Answer 6

This won't remove run_tests.py, but will make it work with setuptools. Add:

class Loader(unittest.TestLoader):
    def loadTestsFromNames(self, names, _=None):
        return self.discover(names[0])

Then in setup.py: (I assume you're doing something like setup(**config))

config = {
    ...
    'test_loader': 'run_tests:Loader',
    'test_suite': '.', # your start_dir for discover()
}

The only downside I see is it's bending the semantics of loadTestsFromNames, but the setuptools test command is the only consumer, and calls it in a specified way.