[Python-Dev] noob contributions to unit tests

[R. David Murray]

On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:59:06 -0700, Maciej Fijalkowski <fijall at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Sean Felipe Wolfe <ether.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey everybody how are you all :)
> >
> > I am an intermediate-level python coder looking to get help out. I've
> > been reading over the dev guide about helping increase test coverage
> > -->
> > http://docs.python.org/devguide/coverage.html
> >
> > And also the third-party code coverage referenced in the devguide page:
> > http://coverage.livinglogic.de/
> >
> > I'm seeing that according to the coverage tool, two of my favorite
> > libraries, urllib/urllib2, have no unit tests? Is that correct or am I
> > reading it wrong?
> >
> > If that's correct it seems like a great place perhaps for me to cut my
> > teeth and I would be excited to learn and help out here.
> >
> > And of course any thoughts or advice for an aspiring Python
> > contributor would be appreciated. Of course the dev guide gives me
> > plenty of good info.
> >
> > Thanks!
> 
> That looks like an error in the coverage report, there are certainly
> urllib and urllib2 tests in test/test_urllib*

The devguide contains instructions for running coverage yourself,
and if I recall correctly the 'fullcoverage' recipe does a better
job than what runs at coverage.livinglogic.de.

On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that even if the coverage were at
100% code-and-branch coverage, there'd still be tests worth adding,
if you are as familiar with the modules as your intro suggests :)

However, if you are writing new tests, please write them against
the default branch, which means urllib in Python3 (the test files
are still named like they are in Python2, though).

--David

PS: If you aren't aware of the core-mentorship mailing list, you
might want to check that out as well.