[Python-Dev] unittest enhancement for TestCase classes hierarchies

[Collin Winter]

In my continuing trawl through the SF patch tracker, I came across
#1244929 (http://python.org/sf/1244929), which causes
TestLoader.loadTestsFromModule() to skip classes whose name starts
with an underscore. This addresses the warning in that method's docs:

"""
While using a hierarchy of
TestCase-derived classes can be convenient in sharing
fixtures and helper functions, defining test methods on base classes
that are not intended to be instantiated directly does not play well
with this method.  Doing so, however, can be useful when the
fixtures are different and defined in subclasses.
"""

"Does not play well", in this case, means that your base classes will
be picked up against your will if they subclass TestCase.

I like the patch and have worked up tests and doc changes for it. Any
objections to including this in 2.6?

Collin Winter