Question

I’ve got a fairly basic doctestable file:

class Foo():
    """
    >>> 3+2
    5
    """

if __name__ in ("__main__", "__console__"):
    import doctest
    doctest.testmod(verbose=True)

which works as expected when run directly through python.

However, in iPython, I get

1 items had no tests:
    __main__
0 tests in 1 items.
0 passed and 0 failed.
Test passed.

Since this is part of a Django project and will need access to all of the appropriate variables and such that manage.py sets up, I can also run it through a modified command, which uses code.InteractiveConsole, one result of which is __name__ gets set to ‘__console__‘.

With the code above, I get the same result as with iPython. I tried changing the last line to this:

 this = __import__(__name__)
 doctest.testmod(this, verbose=True)

and I get an ImportError on __console__, which makes sense, I guess. This has no effect on either python or ipython.

So, I’d like to be able to run doctests successfully through all three of these methods, especially the InteractiveConsole one, since I expect to be needing Django pony magic fairly soon.

Just for clarification, this is what I’m expecting:

Trying:
    3+2
Expecting:
    5
ok
1 items had no tests:
    __main__
1 items passed all tests:
   1 tests in __main__.Foo
1 tests in 2 items.
1 passed and 0 failed.
Test passed.

Answer 1

The following works:

$ ipython
...
In [1]: %run file.py

Trying:
    3+2
Expecting:
    5
ok
1 items had no tests:
    __main__
1 items passed all tests:
   1 tests in __main__.Foo
1 tests in 2 items.
1 passed and 0 failed.
Test passed.

In [2]: 

I have no idea why ipython file.py does not work. But the above is at least a workaround.

EDIT:

I found the reason why it does not work. It is quite simple:

• If you do not specify the module to test in doctest.testmod(), it assumes that you want to test the __main__ module.
• When IPython executes the file passed to it on the command line, the __main__ module is IPython’s __main__, not your module. So doctest tries to execute doctests in IPython’s entry script.

The following works, but feels a bit weird:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    import the_current_module
    doctest.testmod(the_current_module)

So basically the module imports itself (that’s the “feels a bit weird” part). But it works. Something I do not like abt. this approach is that every module needs to include its own name in the source.

EDIT 2:

The following script, ipython_doctest, makes ipython behave the way you want:

#! /usr/bin/env bash

echo "__IP.magic_run(\"$1\")" > __ipython_run.py
ipython __ipython_run.py

The script creates a python script that will execute %run argname in IPython.

Example:

$ ./ipython_doctest file.py
Trying:
    3+2
Expecting:
    5
ok
1 items had no tests:
    __main__
1 items passed all tests:
   1 tests in __main__.Foo
1 tests in 2 items.
1 passed and 0 failed.
Test passed.
Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Mar  7 2008, 03:27:42) 
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 0.9.1 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.

In [1]: