[Python-Dev] patch for review: unittest ImportError handling

[Michael Foord]

On 14/04/2010 05:49, Chris Jerdonek wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I have a patch to the unittest module for review here:
>
> http://bugs.python.org/issue7559#msg102801
>
> (There have already been a couple rounds of discussion on how to best
> fix this.)
>
> This is my first patch, so any feedback is appreciated.
>    

I'm still not convinced that this isn't a backwards incompatible change 
- up until now, however horrible it may be, TestLoader.loadTestsFromName 
only raised an AttributeError when it failed to load a test. Changing it 
to allow it propagate ImportError means that code catching errors by 
handling AttributeError will be potentially broken by the fix. I'm 
certainly happy to discuss this here though.

An alternative fix would be for a new API and deprecation of 
loadTestFromName. A new API could return a placeholder test that raises 
the original error when run - that way individual errors don't break the 
test collection phase but are still reported. This *could* be added to 
loadTestsFromName with an optional argument.

By the way, in general please don't assign unittest bugs *away* from me 
on the tracker. I'm maintaining unittest and have been watching this 
issue. I haven't given it much attention recently because of getting the 
new features ready for the 2.7b1 release. I will certainly want to look 
through the patch before it is committed, if the consensus here is that 
changing this API to raise an ImportError is not a backwards 
incompatible change.

All the best,

Michael Foord

> Thanks,
> --Chris
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