Writing unit tests in Python How do I start

Question

I completed my first proper project in Python and now my task is to write tests for it   Since this is the first time I did a project  this is the first time I would be writing tests for it   The question is  how do I start  I have absolutely no idea  Can anyone point me to some documentation  tutorial  link  book that I can use to start with writing tests  and I guess unit testing in particular   Any advice will be welcomed on this topic

User · Answer

unittest comes with the standard library  but I would recomend you nosetests    nose extends unittest to make testing easier    I would also recomend you pylint   analyzes Python source code looking for bugs and signs of poor quality

User · Answer

There are  in my opinion  three great python testing frameworks that are good to check out  unittest - module comes standard with all python distributions nose - can run unittest tests  and has less boilerplate  pytest - also runs unittest tests  has less boilerplate  better reporting  lots of cool extra features  To get a good comparison of all of these  read through the introductions to each at http   pythontesting net start-here  There s also extended articles on fixtures  and more there

User · Answer

The free Python book Dive Into Python has a chapter on unit testing that you might find useful   If you follow modern practices you should probably write the tests while you are writing your project  and not wait until your project is nearly finished   Bit late now  but now you know for next time

User · Answer

The docs for unittest would be a good place to start   Also  it is a bit late now  but in the future please consider writing unit tests before or during the project itself  That way you can use them to test as you go along  and  in theory  you can use them as regression tests  to verify that your code changes have not broken any existing code  This would give you the full benefit of writing test cases

User · Answer

If you re brand new to using unittests  the simplest approach to learn is often the best  On that basis along I recommend using py test rather than the default unittest module   Consider these two examples  which do the same thing   Example 1  unittest    import unittest  class LearningCase unittest TestCase       def test starting out self           self assertEqual 1  1   def main        unittest main    if   name         main         main     Example 2  pytest    def test starting out        assert 1    1   Assuming that both files are named test unittesting py  how do we run the tests   Example 1  unittest    cd  path to dir  python test unittesting py   Example 2  pytest    cd  path to dir  py test

User · Answer

nosetests is brilliant solution for unit-testing in python  It supports both unittest based testcases and doctests  and gets you started with it with just simple config file

User · Answer

As others already replied  it s late to write unit tests  but not too late  The question is whether your code is testable or not  Indeed  it s not easy to put existing code under test  there is even a book about this  Working Effectively with Legacy Code  see key points or precursor PDF     Now writing the unit tests or not is your call  You just need to be aware that it could be a tedious task  You might tackle this to learn unit-testing or consider writing acceptance  end-to-end  tests first  and start writing unit tests when you ll change the code or add new feature to the project

[python] Writing unit tests in Python: How do I start?

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