How to Run All Python Unit Tests in a Directory

How do I run all Python unit tests in a directory?

With Python 2.7 and higher you don't have to write new code or use third-party tools to do this; recursive test execution via the command line is built-in. Put an __init__.py in your test directory and:

python -m unittest discover <test_directory>
# or
python -m unittest discover -s <directory> -p '*_test.py'

You can read more in the python 2.7
or python 3.x unittest documentation.

---

Update for 2021:

Lots of modern python projects use more advanced tools like pytest. For example, pull down matplotlib or scikit-learn and you will see they both use it.

It is important to know about these newer tools because when you have more than 7000 tests you need:

• more advanced ways to summarize what passes, skipped, warnings, errors
• easy ways to see how they failed
• percent complete as it is running
• total run time
• ways to generate a test report
• etc etc

Running unittest with typical test directory structure

The best solution in my opinion is to use the unittest command line interface which will add the directory to the sys.path so you don't have to (done in the TestLoader class).

For example for a directory structure like this:

new_project
├── antigravity.py
└── test_antigravity.py

You can just run:

$ cd new_project
$ python -m unittest test_antigravity

For a directory structure like yours:

new_project
├── antigravity
│   ├── __init__.py         # make it a package
│   └── antigravity.py
└── test
    ├── __init__.py         # also make test a package
    └── test_antigravity.py

And in the test modules inside the test package, you can import the antigravity package and its modules as usual:

# import the package
import antigravity

# import the antigravity module
from antigravity import antigravity

# or an object inside the antigravity module
from antigravity.antigravity import my_object

Running a single test module:

To run a single test module, in this case test_antigravity.py:

$ cd new_project
$ python -m unittest test.test_antigravity

Just reference the test module the same way you import it.

Running a single test case or test method:

Also you can run a single TestCase or a single test method:

$ python -m unittest test.test_antigravity.GravityTestCase
$ python -m unittest test.test_antigravity.GravityTestCase.test_method

Running all tests:

You can also use test discovery which will discover and run all the tests for you, they must be modules or packages named test*.py (can be changed with the -p, --pattern flag):

$ cd new_project
$ python -m unittest discover
$ # Also works without discover for Python 3
$ # as suggested by @Burrito in the comments
$ python -m unittest

This will run all the test*.py modules inside the test package.

Run all tests from subdirectories in Python

So I had to do my own workaround but at least I can get them all to run with the above file structure. It requires that I reinstantiate the TestLoader and the TestSuite each time I give it a new file path, so first I need to collect all relevant file paths in the unittest directory.

import os
import unittest
import traceback

class UnitTestLauncher(object):

  def runTests(self):
    #logging.INFO("Running unit tests...")

    lsPaths = []

    #Find all relevant subdirectories that contain unit tests
    #Exclude 'unittest' directory, but include subdirectories, with code `path != 'unittest'`
    for path,subdirs,files in os.walk('unittest'):
      if "pycache" not in path and path != 'unittest':
        lsPaths.append(path)

    #loop through subdirectories and run individually
    for path in lsPaths:
      loader = unittest.TestLoader()
      suite = unittest.TestSuite()
      suite = loader.discover(path)
      unittest.TextTestRunner().run(suite)

This solution is not perfect and each different directory comes out as a line of output so you have to look through each line manually for failed tests.

Is it possible to run all unit test?

You could create a TestSuite and run all your tests in it's if __name__ == '__main__' block:

import unittest   

def create_suite():
    test_suite = unittest.TestSuite()
    test_suite.addTest(fooTest())
    test_suite.addTest(barTest())
    return test_suite

if __name__ == '__main__':
   suite = create_suite()

   runner=unittest.TextTestRunner()
   runner.run(suite)

If you do not want to create the test cases manually look at this quesiton/answer, which basically creates the test cases dynamically, or use some of the features of the unittest module like test discovery feature and command line options ..

Run python unittest in context of specific directory

There is a os function to change the directory, try adding os.chdir('src') to your test.

import unittest
import os

from src.main import get_cwd

class TestMain(unittest.TestCase):

    def test_get_cwd(self):
        os.chdir('src')
        print('testing get_cwd()')
        current_dir = get_cwd()
        self.assertIsNotNone(current_dir)
        self.assertEqual(current_dir, 'src')

---

Related Topics