[docs] [issue22153] There is no standard TestCase.runTest implementation

Martin Panter report at bugs.python.org
Wed Aug 6 07:00:02 CEST 2014


New submission from Martin Panter:

The documentation for "unittest.TestCase" says "the standard implementation of the default 'methodName', runTest(), will run every method starting with 'test' as an individual test". However:

>>> from unittest import *
>>> class Test(TestCase):
...     def test_method(self): pass
... 
>>> t = Test()
>>> t.run()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/unittest/case.py", line 552, in run
    testMethod = getattr(self, self._testMethodName)
AttributeError: 'Test' object has no attribute 'runTest'

After further experimentation, I see that if my test method is called "runTest", it can be automatically discovered, but only if there are no other test- prefixed methods.

Perhaps you could drop the end of the second paragraph for TestCase, so that it just reads:

Each instance of TestCase will run a single base method: the method named "methodName".

I think the details about the test- prefix and counting results are covered elsewhere, and in most uses you wouldn't instantiate a TestCase yourself, so changing the method name is irrelevant.

Also, perhaps under "TestLoader.loadTestsFromTestCase" it should say:

If no methods with the usual name prefix are found, but the "runTest" method is implemented, there will be a single test case using that method.

----------
assignee: docs at python
components: Documentation
messages: 224907
nosy: docs at python, vadmium
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: There is no standard TestCase.runTest implementation
versions: Python 3.4, Python 3.5

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue22153>
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