Run setUp only once for a set of automated tests

Question

My Python version is 2.6.

I would like to execute the test setUp method only once since I do things there which are needed for all tests.

My idea was to crea

Answer 1

I'm using Python 3 and found that the cls reference is also available in the setup method and so the following works:

class TestThing(unittest.TestCase):

  @classmethod
  def setUpClass(cls):
    cls.thing = Thing() # the `thing` is only instantiated once

  def setup(self):
    self.thing = cls.thing # ...but set on each test case instance

  def test_the_thing(self):
    self.assertTrue(self.thing is not None)