Can I debug with python debugger when using py.test somehow?

Question

I am using py.test for unit testing my python program. I wish to debug my test code with the python debugger the normal way (by which I mean pdb.set_trace() in the code) but

Answer 1

Similar to Peter Lyon's answer, but with the exact code you need for pytest, you can add the following to the bottom of your pytest module (my_test_module.py) :

if __name__ == "__main__":
    pytest.main(["my_test_module.py", "-s"])

Then you can invoke the debugger from the command line:

pdb3 my_test_module.py

Boom. You're in the debugger and able to enter debugger commands. This method leaves your test code un-littered with set_trace() calls and will run inside pytest 'normally'.