what test runner should I use?

Chris Withers chris at simplistix.co.uk
Tue Jan 19 05:56:34 EST 2010


Hi All,

I'm wondering what test runner I should use. Here's my list of requirements:

- cross platform (I develop for and on Windows, Linux and Mac)

- should not prevent tests from running with other test runners
   (so no plugins/layers/etc that only work with one specific test
    runner)

- should work with zc.buildout (preferably without a specialist recipe!)

So far I've tried the following with the resultant problems:

zope.testing

  - requires a special recipe to be useful
  - now emits deprecation warnings from itself:
    https://mail.zope.org/pipermail/zope-dev/2009-December/038965.html
  - coverage support is baroque to put it politely

twisted's trial

  - only has old-style script definition in setup.py, so doesn't work
    with buildout without hackery

  - drops _twisted_trial folders all over the place and doesn't clear
    them up

nose

  - can't see to get it to run only my packages tests, rather than
    including the tests of packages my package depends on

  - seems to be focused towards files rather than modules
    (which makes it not play nicely with buildout)

  - seems to be difficult to provide options to at configuration time
    that can then be overridden on the command line

I did also look at py.test's homepage but found it pretty scary.

What other options do people recommend?
Failing that, any ideas how to fix the problems above?

cheers,

Chris




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