The new features in unittest for Python 2.7 backported to Python 2.4+.
Project description
unittest2 is a backport of the new features added to the unittest testing framework in Python 2.7. It is tested to run on Python 2.4 - 2.6.
To use unittest2 instead of unittest simply replace import unittest with import unittest2.
unittest2 is maintained in a mercurial repository. The issue tracker is on google code:
Classes in unittest2 derive from the appropriate classes in unittest, so it should be possible to use the unittest2 test running infrastructure without having to switch all your tests to using unittest2 immediately. Similarly you can use the new assert methods on unittest2.TestCase with the standard unittest test running infrastructure. Not all of the new features in unittest2 will work with the standard unittest test loaders and runners however.
New features include:
addCleanups - better resource management
many new assert methods including better defaults for comparing lists, sets, dicts unicode strings etc and the ability to specify new default methods for comparing specific types
assertRaises as context manager, with access to the exception afterwards
test discovery and new command line options (including failfast and better handling of ctrl-C during test runs)
class and module level fixtures: setUpClass, tearDownClass, setUpModule, tearDownModule
test skipping and expected failures
new delta keyword argument to assertAlmostEquals for more useful comparison and for comparing non-numeric objects (like datetimes)
load_tests protocol for loading tests from modules or packages
startTestRun and stopTestRun methods on TestResult
various other API improvements and fixes
Until I write proper documentation, the best information on all the new features is the development version of the Python documentation for Python 2.7:
Look for notes about features added or changed in Python 2.7.
Differences
Differences between unittest2 and unittest in Python 2.7:
assertItemsEqual does not silence Py3k warnings as this uses warnings.catch_warnings() which is new in Python 2.6 (and is used as a context manager which would be a pain to make work with Python 2.4).
The underlying dictionary storing the type equality functions on TestCase is a custom object rather than a real dictionary. This allows TestCase instances to be deep-copyable on Python versions prior to 2.7.
TestCase.longMessage defaults to True because it is better. It defaults to False in Python 2.7 for backwards compatibility reasons.
python -m package doesn’t work until Python 2.7. The command line features of unittest2 are provided by a unit2 (and unit2.py) script instead.
Issues
A TestResult object with unexpected successes returns True for result.wasSuccessful(). Difficult to know if this is the correct behaviour or not.
If a dotted path name is used for test discovery then a globally installed module/package will still be used in preference of one in the current directory. When doing discovery from a dotted path name we could check for this specific case.
The removeHandler decorator could also be a context manager.
CHANGELOG
2010/05/09 - 0.4.1
If test discovery imports a module from the wrong location (usually because the module is globally installed and the user is expecting to run tests against a development version in a different location) then discovery halts with an ImportError and the problem is reported.
Added docstrings to assertRegexpMatches and assertNotRegexpMatches.
Putting functions in test suites no longer crashes.
2010/04/08 - 0.4.0
Addition of removeHandler for removing the control-C handler.
delta keyword argument for assertAlmostEqual and assertNotAlmostEqual.
Addition of -b command line option (and TestResult.buffer) for buffering stdout / stderr during test runs.
Addition of TestCase.assertNotRegexpMatches.
Allow test discovery using dotted module names instead of a path.
All imports requiring the signal module are now optional, for compatiblity with IronPython (or other platforms without this module).
Tests fixed to be compatible with nosetest.
2010/03/26 - 0.3.0
assertSameElements removed and assertItemsEqual added; assert that sequences contain the same elements.
Addition of -f/–failfast command line option, stopping test run on first failure or error.
Addition of -c/–catch command line option for better control-C handling during test runs.
Added BaseTestSuite, for use by frameworks that don’t want to support shared class and module fixtures.
Skipped test methods no longer have setUp and tearDown called around them.
Faulty load_tests functions no longer halt test discovery.
Using non-strings for failure messages now works.
Potential for UnicodeDecodeError whilst creating failure messages fixed.
Split out monolithic test module into a package.
BUGFIX: Correct usage message now shown for unit2 scripts.
BUGFIX: __unittest in module globals trims frames from that module in reported stacktraces.
2010/03/06 - 0.2.0
The TextTestRunner is now compatible with old result objects and standard (non-TextTestResult) TestResult objects.
setUpClass / tearDownClass / setUpModule / tearDownModule added.
2010/02/22 - 0.1.6
Fix for compatibility with old TestResult objects. New tests can now be run with nosetests (with a DeprecationWarning for TestResult objects without methods to support skipping etc).
0.1
Initial release.
TODO
For before the Python 2.7 final release:
Issues 8302, 8303, 8351, 8564 and 8313 on the Python bug tracker
Document BaseTestSuite and _ErrorHolder
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