Hi David, On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 06:52 -0700, David Ripton wrote:
On 2005.04.16 21:57:51 +0000, holger krekel wrote:
Note that the command line options changed slightly, because there is a new rule: py.test will consume all lowercase single-letter options like "-h", "-v", "-x" and so on while applications should add only consume capital cased letters.
Haven't looked at the new code yet, so maybe I'm interpreting your statement incorrectly, but this seems wrong.
Sorry, i wasn't very precise in my above statement. py.test has always been using command line options. But, for example with PyPy, we have a couple of extra options to the testing process (which you can provide through 'conftest.py' files in your package). Now the idea is that such test extensions (what i called "applications" above) should use upper-case letters while py.test restrains itself to only use lower-case ones. This way py.test has enough future possible options :-) So with respect to what a test module finds in sys.argv nothing has changed. In fact, if a test module inspects sys.argv it will find the complete list of options (provided to py.test).
I currently don't rely on the value of sys.argv in unit tests. If I need to test a script that uses argv, I split out a main function from the top-level "if __name__ == '__main__'" block and make the latter as small and simple as possible (usually just "main()") so I don't have to test it.
makes sense.
... This is occasionally inconvenient. For example, sometimes a script requires a password, and you don't want to hardcode it, and you don't want to put it in a file, and you don't want your test to be overly interactive, and putting it on the command line feels like the least insecure of the simple options. (I know, someone could use ps to sniff it, so this is hardly super-secure.)
Now, it would be nice to assume that py.test will leave {some of} sys.argv alone, so that I have the option of using it.
Yes, although it is not completely obvious how to exactly do it (also with respect to the underlying optparse-usage).
But a rule based on capitalization seems like the wrong way to do this. I want to pick option names for my programs based on what's user-friendly, not what my test framework allows.
Sure but py.test is usually not running your application, is it? :-) Basically i would suggest that you add a special testing command line option that holds your password information. E.g. in a conftest.py in your package you could add: option = py.test.addptions("my app testing options", Option('-P', '--password', action="store", default=None, type="string", dest="password", help="password used for XXX connections."), And then in your test_whatever.py: from mypackage.conftest import option .... def test_something(): myscript.main(...use option.password... ) If you then are in your package and issue 'py.test -h' it will have your option. cheers, holger