[Distutils] Where should I put tests when packaging python modules?

[Erik Bray]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Ionel Cristian Mărieș
<contact at ionelmc.ro> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:51 AM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au>
> wrote:
>>
>> I think the above describes the standard way of declaring the test
>> runner: The ‘setup.py test’ command.
>>
>> Now, I lament that more Python projects don't *conform to* that
>> standard, but at least it exists.
>
>
> There's a very simple answer to that: easy_install (that's what `setup.py
> test` will use to install deps). It has several design issue wrt how
> packages are installed and how dependencies are managed.
>
> Lets not use `setup.py test`. It's either bad or useless.

Says who?  Many of the projects I'm involved in use `setup.py test`
exclusively and for good reason--they all have C and/or Cython
extension modules that need to be built for the tests to even run.
Only setup.py knows about those extension modules and how to find and
build them.  Using `setup.py test` ensures that everything required to
run the package (including runtime dependencies) is built and ready,
and then the tests can start.  Without it, we would have to tell
developers to go through a build process first and then make sure
they're running the tests on the built code.  `setup.py test` makes it
a no-brainer.

For pure Python packages I think it's less important and can usually
rely on "just run 'nose', or 'py.test'"  (or "tox" but that's true
regardless of how the tests are invoked outside of tox).

Best,
Erik