[Python-Dev] Refactoring test.support into a subpackage

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/15/2013 6:22 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> At the PyCon AU sprints, some of the sprinters worked on a plan Chris
> Jerdonek and I came up with months ago to convert test.support from a
> module into a subpackage.
>
> This plan arose from some nasty test suite hacks in the lead up to the
> release of Python 3.3, where some of the pkgutil tests ended up in
> test.test_runpy so they could use the package creation infrastructure
> I have in there without needing to extract a helper module with a
> release imminent.
>
> The scope of the plan covers a few distinct steps:
>
> 1. Move Lib/test/support.py to Lib/test/support/__init__.py
> (http://bugs.python.org/issue15494)
> 2. Add a new (documented) test.support.pkg_helper submodule with the
> package creation support code (http://bugs.python.org/issue15403 and
> http://bugs.python.org/issue15376)
> 3. Move the pkgutil tests to test.test_pkgutil where they belong
> (http://bugs.python.org/issue15358)
> 4. Move the existing test.script_helper and test.bytecode_helper
> support modules into the test.support subpackage and document them (no
> issue for that as yet)
>
> These changes would be made on both 3.3 and default, to avoid future
> merge conflicts (note that Indra also posted an updated patch for one
> pending test suite update to cope with the relocation:
> http://bugs.python.org/issue15415)
>
> My main motivation for doing this is to give a bit more visibility to
> the helpers that already exist, as well as making them easier to find

Bundling together all the support code I should know about sounds good 
to me. I only became aware of script_helper, recently, when I saw it 
imported in a test_xxx file. I still have no idea what it does.

> when we want to look into the details of what a test is doing. At the
> moment, they tend to get lost in the sea of actual test files in the
> main test directory.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy