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<H2><A NAME="SECTION007320000000000000000"></A><A NAME="organizing-tests"></A>
<BR>
5.3.2 Organizing test code

</H2>

<P>
The basic building blocks of unit testing are <i class="dfn">test cases</i> --
single scenarios that must be set up and checked for correctness.  In
PyUnit, test cases are represented by instances of the
<tt class="class">TestCase</tt> class in the <tt class="module"><a href="module-unittest.html">unittest</a></tt> module. To make
your own test cases you must write subclasses of <tt class="class">TestCase</tt>, or
use <tt class="class">FunctionTestCase</tt>.

<P>
An instance of a <tt class="class">TestCase</tt>-derived class is an object that can
completely run a single test method, together with optional set-up
and tidy-up code.

<P>
The testing code of a <tt class="class">TestCase</tt> instance should be entirely
self contained, such that it can be run either in isolation or in
arbitrary combination with any number of other test cases.

<P>
The simplest test case subclass will simply override the
<tt class="method">runTest()</tt> method in order to perform specific testing code:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
import unittest

class DefaultWidgetSizeTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def runTest(self):
        widget = Widget("The widget")
        self.failUnless(widget.size() == (50,50), 'incorrect default size')
</pre></div>

<P>
Note that in order to test something, we use the one of the
<tt class="method">assert*()</tt> or <tt class="method">fail*()</tt> methods provided by the
<tt class="class">TestCase</tt> base class.  If the test fails when the test case
runs, an exception will be raised, and the testing framework will
identify the test case as a <i class="dfn">failure</i>.  Other exceptions that do
not arise from checks made through the <tt class="method">assert*()</tt> and
<tt class="method">fail*()</tt> methods are identified by the testing framework as
dfnerrors.

<P>
The way to run a test case will be described later.  For now, note
that to construct an instance of such a test case, we call its
constructor without arguments:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
testCase = DefaultWidgetSizeTestCase()
</pre></div>

<P>
Now, such test cases can be numerous, and their set-up can be
repetitive.  In the above case, constructing a ``Widget'' in each of
100 Widget test case subclasses would mean unsightly duplication.

<P>
Luckily, we can factor out such set-up code by implementing a method
called <tt class="method">setUp()</tt>, which the testing framework will
automatically call for us when we run the test:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
import unittest

class SimpleWidgetTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.widget = Widget("The widget")

class DefaultWidgetSizeTestCase(SimpleWidgetTestCase):
    def runTest(self):
        self.failUnless(self.widget.size() == (50,50),
                        'incorrect default size')

class WidgetResizeTestCase(SimpleWidgetTestCase):
    def runTest(self):
        self.widget.resize(100,150)
        self.failUnless(self.widget.size() == (100,150),
                        'wrong size after resize')
</pre></div>

<P>
If the <tt class="method">setUp()</tt> method raises an exception while the test is
running, the framework will consider the test to have suffered an
error, and the <tt class="method">runTest()</tt> method will not be executed.

<P>
Similarly, we can provide a <tt class="method">tearDown()</tt> method that tidies up
after the <tt class="method">runTest()</tt> method has been run:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
import unittest

class SimpleWidgetTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.widget = Widget("The widget")

    def tearDown(self):
        self.widget.dispose()
        self.widget = None
</pre></div>

<P>
If <tt class="method">setUp()</tt> succeeded, the <tt class="method">tearDown()</tt> method will be
run regardless of whether or not <tt class="method">runTest()</tt> succeeded.

<P>
Such a working environment for the testing code is called a
<i class="dfn">fixture</i>.

<P>
Often, many small test cases will use the same fixture.  In this case,
we would end up subclassing <tt class="class">SimpleWidgetTestCase</tt> into many
small one-method classes such as
<tt class="class">DefaultWidgetSizeTestCase</tt>.  This is time-consuming and
discouraging, so in the same vein as JUnit, PyUnit provides a simpler
mechanism:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
import unittest

class WidgetTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.widget = Widget("The widget")

    def tearDown(self):
        self.widget.dispose()
        self.widget = None

    def testDefaultSize(self):
        self.failUnless(self.widget.size() == (50,50),
                        'incorrect default size')

    def testResize(self):
        self.widget.resize(100,150)
        self.failUnless(self.widget.size() == (100,150),
                        'wrong size after resize')
</pre></div>

<P>
Here we have not provided a <tt class="method">runTest()</tt> method, but have
instead provided two different test methods.  Class instances will now
each run one of the <tt class="method">test*()</tt>  methods, with <code>self.widget</code>
created and destroyed separately for each instance.  When creating an
instance we must specify the test method it is to run.  We do this by
passing the method name in the constructor:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
defaultSizeTestCase = WidgetTestCase("testDefaultSize")
resizeTestCase = WidgetTestCase("testResize")
</pre></div>

<P>
Test case instances are grouped together according to the features
they test.  PyUnit provides a mechanism for this: the <tt class="class">test
suite</tt>, represented by the class <tt class="class">TestSuite</tt> in the
<tt class="module"><a href="module-unittest.html">unittest</a></tt> module:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
widgetTestSuite = unittest.TestSuite()
widgetTestSuite.addTest(WidgetTestCase("testDefaultSize"))
widgetTestSuite.addTest(WidgetTestCase("testResize"))
</pre></div>

<P>
For the ease of running tests, as we will see later, it is a good
idea to provide in each test module a callable object that returns a
pre-built test suite:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
def suite():
    suite = unittest.TestSuite()
    suite.addTest(WidgetTestCase("testDefaultSize"))
    suite.addTest(WidgetTestCase("testResize"))
    return suite
</pre></div>

<P>
or even:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
class WidgetTestSuite(unittest.TestSuite):
    def __init__(self):
        unittest.TestSuite.__init__(self,map(WidgetTestCase,
                                              ("testDefaultSize",
                                               "testResize")))
</pre></div>

<P>
(The latter is admittedly not for the faint-hearted!)

<P>
Since it is a common pattern to create a <tt class="class">TestCase</tt> subclass
with many similarly named test functions, there is a convenience
function called <tt class="function">makeSuite()</tt> that constructs a test suite
that comprises all of the test cases in a test case class:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
suite = unittest.makeSuite(WidgetTestCase)
</pre></div>

<P>
Note that when using the <tt class="function">makeSuite()</tt> function, the order in
which the various test cases will be run by the test suite is the
order determined by sorting the test function names using the
<tt class="function">cmp()</tt> built-in function.

<P>
Often it is desirable to group suites of test cases together, so as to
run tests for the whole system at once.  This is easy, since
<tt class="class">TestSuite</tt> instances can be added to a <tt class="class">TestSuite</tt> just
as <tt class="class">TestCase</tt> instances can be added to a <tt class="class">TestSuite</tt>:

<P>
<div class="verbatim"><pre>
suite1 = module1.TheTestSuite()
suite2 = module2.TheTestSuite()
alltests = unittest.TestSuite((suite1, suite2))
</pre></div>

<P>
You can place the definitions of test cases and test suites in the
same modules as the code they are to test (such as <span class="file">widget.py</span>),
but there are several advantages to placing the test code in a
separate module, such as <span class="file">widgettests.py</span>:

<P>

<UL>
<LI>The test module can be run standalone from the command line.
</LI>
<LI>The test code can more easily be separated from shipped code.
</LI>
<LI>There is less temptation to change test code to fit the code
        it tests without a good reason.
</LI>
<LI>Test code should be modified much less frequently than the
        code it tests.
</LI>
<LI>Tested code can be refactored more easily.
</LI>
<LI>Tests for modules written in C must be in separate modules
        anyway, so why not be consistent?
</LI>
<LI>If the testing strategy changes, there is no need to change
        the source code.
</LI>
</UL>

<P>

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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span>
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