Using python's unittest to test multiple files

Question

I'm trying to write a testing script in python to test multiple files containing the same functions (coding assignments). I currently have a single test script that imports the file destined for testing and runs several tests using a class that inherits from unittest.TestCase:

from file_to_test import *

class Testing(unittest.TestCase):

               <tests...>

I was wondering if there is a way to write another code that iterates over all files that should be tested, allowing us to test them all in one run. can this be done somehow? I thought about writing all outputs to a file and then using diff, but I wonder if there is a different solution.

thanks a lot!

I don't understand the question, do you have a single file which tests a multitude of loosely related components? Or do you need to run the same tests to all files? — Masklinn, Mar 24 '20 at 12:04
Hi, and welcome to StackOverflow. When you are doing unit testing, you are normally testing the *code* execution, not the files. In your structure above, you could have a test routine (probably with a signature like `def test_files(self):` that iterates over all the files you have in a given directory. — rajah9, Mar 24 '20 at 12:10
Hi, thank you both! I have many files that implement the same functions. I was wondering how I can test their function iteratively as rajah suggested. the problem arose since my test imports a single file to call its functions for testing, and I couldn't figure out how to iterate over many files *and* include a different file at each iteration or any other way that allows me to access and call the files functions. — Dan, Mar 27 '20 at 21:52

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '20 at 09:49

this worked for me:

test_import_format = "import {} as tested_script\n"
for file in os.listdir(DIR_PATH):
    if file.endswith(".py") and not file.endswith(
            "test_name.py") and not file.endswith("THIS_FILE.py"):
        cur_test_import = test_import_format.format(
            ntpath.basename(file).split(".")[0])
        with open("test_name.py", 'r') as test, open("temp.py", 'w') as temp:
            for i, line in enumerate(test):
                if i == 0:
                    temp.write(cur_test_import)
                else:
                    temp.write(line)
        subprocess.call([sys.executable, "temp.py"])
        os.remove(r"DIR_PATH/temp.py")

Using python's unittest to test multiple files

1 Answers1