Using Command Line Parameters with pytest --pyargs

Question

I have written pytest unit tests for a package I've written with a structure like below:

packagedir
- setup.py
- mypackage
  - __init__.py
  - functionpackage
    - __init__.py
    - functionmodule.py
  - test
    - __init__.py
    - conftest.py
    - unit_tests
      - __init__.py
      - functionmodule_test.py

Now packagedir/mypackage/test/conftest.py establishes two required command line parameters to be created as fixtures for the tests. When I run something like:

pytest packagedir/mypackage/ --var1 foo --var2 bar

All the tests run and the command line parameters are read in correctly. However, when I pip install the package (which installs the test and unit_tests packages correctly) and then try something like this:

pytest --pyargs mypackage --var1 foo --var2 bar

I get an error like this:

usage: pytest [options] [file_or_dir] [file_or_dir] [...]
pytest: error: unrecognized arguments: --var1 foo --var2 bar

If I run:

pytest --pyargs mypackage

the tests run but fail because the command line arguments are not present.

Can someone explain to me what might be going wrong here? I could guess and say this is because the --pyargs argument changes the interpretation of the command line parameters for pytest, but it's just a guess. I'd like to know if there is an actual way I could fix this.

The overarching goal would be to allow someone to pip install mypackage and then be able to easily test it without navigating to the site-packages location of the install.

cross-referencing relevant pytest issue: github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/issues/1596 — Gregory Kuhn

User User · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-02T20:58:02

I added a __main__.py to the mypackage/test directory and wrote

import os
import sys

HERE = os.path.dirname(__file__)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import pytest
    errcode = pytest.main([HERE] + sys.argv[1:])
    sys.exit(errcode)

Now, I can execute the tests with

python -m mypackage.test --myoption=works

This works when the package is installed.

You can view this in action with a travis build:

Using Command Line Parameters with pytest --pyargs

1 Answers