[New-bugs-announce] [issue42722] Add --debug command line option to unittest to enable post-mortem debugging

[Dominik V.]

New submission from Dominik V. <dominik.vilsmeier1123 at gmail.com>:

Currently there is no option to use post-mortem debugging via `pdb`
on a `unittest` test case which fails due to an exception being leaked.

Consider the following example:

```
import unittest

def foo():
    for x in [1, 2, 'oops', 4]:
        print(x + 100)

class TestFoo(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_foo(self):
        self.assertIs(foo(), None)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()
```

If we were calling `foo` directly we could enter post-mortem debugging via
`python -m pdb test.py`.
However since `foo` is wrapped in a test case, `unittest` eats the
exception and thus prevents post-mortem debugging.

So I propose adding a
command-line option `--debug` to unittest for running
test cases in debug mode so that post-mortem debugging can be used.

I see that some third-party distributions enable this, but since both
`unittest` and `pdb` are part of the standard library, it would
be nice if they played well together.
Plus the required methods are already in place (`TestCase.debug`
and `TestSuite.debug`).

There is also a popular StackOverflow question on this topic:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4398967/python-unit-testing-automatically-running-the-debugger-when-a-test-fails

----------
messages: 383624
nosy: Dominik V.
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Add --debug command line option to unittest to enable post-mortem debugging
type: enhancement

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue42722>
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