Giving parameters into TestCase from Suite in python

Question

From python documentation(http://docs.python.org/library/unittest.html):

import unittest

class WidgetTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
              


        

Answer 1

I don't think this is a good idea. Unit tests should be thorough enough that you test all functionality in your cases so passing in different parameteres shouldn't be required.

You mention you're passing in a www address - this is almost certainly not a good idea. What happens if you try and run the tests on a machine where the 'net connection is down? Your tests should be:

• Automatic - they will run on all machines and platforms where your app is supported, without user intervention. They shouldn't rely on external environment to pass. This means (amongst other things) that relying on a properly set up connection to the Internet is a bad idea. You can get around this by providing dummy data. Instead of passing in a URL to a resource, abstract away the data source and pass in a data-stream or whatever. This is especially easy in python since you can make use of python's duck-typing to present a stream-like object (python frequently uses a "file-like" object for this very reason!).

• Thorough - your unit tests should have 100% code coverage, and cover all possible situations. You want to test your code with multiple sites? Instead, test your code with all the possible features that a site may include. Without knowing more about what your application does, I can't offer much advice in this point.

Now, it looks like you're tests are going to be heavily data-driven. There are many tools that allow you to define data-sets for unit tests and load them in the tests. Check out python test fixtures, for example.

I realise that this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I think you'll have more joy in the long-run if you follow these principles.