[Distutils] Problem with distribute and converting tests for python3

[Michael Whapples]

My problem with having unit tests included in a binary distribution is 
that they take up space and have no way to be run, so can certainly be 
called a waste of space. OK, may be they could be run by a user 
importing the correct modules, etc, I meant no simple way (eg. as done 
in a source package with the command
$ setup.py test
). Also anyway what would the reason be for a user to run tests on the 
binary module, I (or another developer in the cases of modified 
versions) should have run the tests before distributing the binary 
package. Source distributions are a different matter in my mind, someone 
can modify it and so having tests is useful.

OK, to possible solutions:
1. Distribute offers the keyword argument "convert_2to3_doctests", may 
be it could have one to give test directory, and then .py files in that 
could be converted.
2. As setuptools automatically includes test/test*.py, why can't 
distribute actually compile these files as well (I question whether 
tests in a test directory should be prefixed with test, but I don't have 
a really strong view should people disagree).

May be even both of those could be combined, so if a test directory is 
not specified then test/test*.py is the default (if such a directory 
exists).

As a note: my views of structuring a source distribution and not 
including tests in binary distributions may be influenced by my java 
programming, hope that helps explain where I may be coming from.

Michael Whapples
On 11/10/09 21:43, Lennart Regebro wrote:
> 2009/10/11 Michael Whapples<mwhapples at aim.com>:
>    
>> Hello,
>> Firstly thanks to those working on distribute, I had been using setuptools
>> but was getting annoyed with it slowly developing (eg. not having python3
>> support, etc), so distribute seems like it is what I am looking for.
>>
>> Any way I am using distribute for one of my packages now (I wanted to try
>> and support python3) but have noticed something which doesn't work for me. I
>> have my main package sources in one directory and then tests in another
>> directory (it makes it easy to separate them out when creating a binary
>> package). Now this works fine for python2.x as I can include the tests in a
>> source distribution by using MANIFEST.in, but it doesn't work for python3 as
>> distribute doesn't seem to run 2to3 on them (although they are run by the
>> distribute/setuptools test command in the setup.py script).
>>      
> You have to tell setup that these files are source files, somehow. By
> just including them in MANIFEST.in but not in any source package
> they'll get treated  as resources. Perhaps if you included it as a
> apckage or py_module?
>
> It is true that Distribute picks up files in test/test*.py for
> inclusion in source distributions, which I didn't know until now.
> These will not be included in the binary distribution, and hence not
> converted with 2to3 either, so that will not work with 2to3 support.
> That needs to be documented or fixed somehow, although I don't really
> know how...
>
>    
>> If I were to
>> structure my source distribution like the distribute example then how do I
>> ensure unit tests aren't included in a binary distribution?
>>      
> Well... what is the actual use case for doing that? There's no problem
> with distributing the tests (in fact, I would say it's a good idea).
>
>