Outputting data from unit test in Python

Question

If I\'m writing unit tests in python (using the unittest module), is it possible to output data from a failed test, so I can examine it to help deduce what caused the error?

Answer 1

inspect.trace will let you get local variables after an exception has been thrown. You can then wrap the unit tests with a decorator like the following one to save off those local variables for examination during the post mortem.

import random
import unittest
import inspect


def store_result(f):
    """
    Store the results of a test
    On success, store the return value.
    On failure, store the local variables where the exception was thrown.
    """
    def wrapped(self):
        if 'results' not in self.__dict__:
            self.results = {}
        # If a test throws an exception, store local variables in results:
        try:
            result = f(self)
        except Exception as e:
            self.results[f.__name__] = {'success':False, 'locals':inspect.trace()[-1][0].f_locals}
            raise e
        self.results[f.__name__] = {'success':True, 'result':result}
        return result
    return wrapped

def suite_results(suite):
    """
    Get all the results from a test suite
    """
    ans = {}
    for test in suite:
        if 'results' in test.__dict__:
            ans.update(test.results)
    return ans

# Example:
class TestSequenceFunctions(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self.seq = range(10)

    @store_result
    def test_shuffle(self):
        # make sure the shuffled sequence does not lose any elements
        random.shuffle(self.seq)
        self.seq.sort()
        self.assertEqual(self.seq, range(10))
        # should raise an exception for an immutable sequence
        self.assertRaises(TypeError, random.shuffle, (1,2,3))
        return {1:2}

    @store_result
    def test_choice(self):
        element = random.choice(self.seq)
        self.assertTrue(element in self.seq)
        return {7:2}

    @store_result
    def test_sample(self):
        x = 799
        with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
            random.sample(self.seq, 20)
        for element in random.sample(self.seq, 5):
            self.assertTrue(element in self.seq)
        return {1:99999}


suite = unittest.TestLoader().loadTestsFromTestCase(TestSequenceFunctions)
unittest.TextTestRunner(verbosity=2).run(suite)

from pprint import pprint
pprint(suite_results(suite))

The last line will print the returned values where the test succeeded and the local variables, in this case x, when it fails:

{'test_choice': {'result': {7: 2}, 'success': True},
 'test_sample': {'locals': {'self': <__main__.TestSequenceFunctions testMethod=test_sample>,
                            'x': 799},
                 'success': False},
 'test_shuffle': {'result': {1: 2}, 'success': True}}

Har det gøy :-)