Question

I don’t do tests, but I’d like to start. I have some questions:

1. Is it ok to use the unittest module for that? From what I understand, the unittest module will run any method starting with test.

2. if I have a separate directory for the tests ( consider a directory named tests ), how would I import the code I’m testing? Do I need to use the imp module? Here’s the directory structure :

   src/

   tests/

Answer 1

It’s fine to use unittest. This module will run methods beginning with test for classes which inherit from unittest.TestCase.

There’s no need to use the imp module – your test module would just import the code under test as normal. You might need to add the src directory to your path:

import sys
sys.path.append('../src') # OnLinux  - use r'..\src' for Windows

This code would be in your test module(s) before any import of your modules.

A better approach is to use the OS environment variable PYTHONPATH.

(Windows) SET PYTHONPATH=path\to\module; python test.py

(Linux) PYTHONPATH=path/to/module; python test.py

An alternative to unittest is nose.