Make sure your test modules/packages have valid python names.

Choosing the correct test runner¶

There are a few modules used to run tests in Python packages. The most common include the built-in unittest module, pytest and nose. There are also some rarely used test tools and domain-specific solutions, e.g. django has its own test runner. This section will help you determining which test runner to use and depend on.

Firstly, it is a good idea to look at test sources. Explicit imports clearly indicate that a particular test runner needs to be installed, and most likely used. For example, if at least one test file has import pytest, pytest is the obvious choice. If it has import nose, same goes for nosetests.

In some rare cases the tests may use multiple test packages simultaneously. In this case, you need to choose one of the test runners (see other suggestions) but depend on all of them.

Secondly, some test suites are relying on implicit features of a test runner. For example, pytest and nose have less strict naming and structural requirements for test cases. In some cases, unittest runner will simply be unable to find all tests.

Thirdly, there are cases when a particular feature of a test runner is desired even if it is not strictly necessary to run tests. This is particularly the case with pytest’s output capture that can make test output much more readable with particularly verbose packages.

Upstream documentation, tox configuration, CI pipelines can provide tips on the test runner to be used. However, you should establish whether this information is wholly correct and up-to-date, and whether the particular test tool is really desirable.

If the test suite requires no particular runner (i.e. works with built-in unittest module), using it is preferable to avoid unnecessary dependencies. However, you need to make sure that it finds all tests correctly (i.e. runs no less tests than the alternative) and that it does not spew too much irrelevant output.

If both pytest and nose seem equally good, the former is recommended as the latter has ceased development and requires downstream patching. If you have some free time, convincing upstream to switch from nose to pytest is a worthwhile goal.

Missing test files in PyPI packages¶

One of the more common test-related problems is that PyPI packages (generated via setup.py sdist) often miss some or all test files. The latter results in no tests being run, the former in test failures or errors.

The simplest solution is to use a VCS snapshot instead of the PyPI tarball:

# pypi tarballs are missing test data
#SRC_URI="mirror://pypi/${PN:0:1}/${PN}/${P}.tar.gz"
SRC_URI="https://github.com/${PN}/${PN}/archive/${PV}.tar.gz -> ${P}.gh.tar.gz"

ImportErrors for C extensions¶

Tests are often invoked in such a way that the Python packages and modules from the current directory take precedence over these found in the staging area or build directory. In fact, this is often necessary to prevent import collisions — e.g. when modules would be loaded first from the staging area due to explicit imports then again from the current directory due to test discovery.

Unfortunately, this does not work correctly if C extensions are built as part of these packages. Since the package imported relatively does not include the necessary extensions, the imports fail, e.g.:

____________________ ERROR collecting systemd/test/test_login.py ____________________
ImportError while importing test module '/tmp/portage/dev-python/python-systemd-234-r
2/work/python-systemd-234/systemd/test/test_login.py'.
Hint: make sure your test modules/packages have valid Python names.
Traceback:
/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/_pytest/python.py:578: in _importtestmodule
    mod = import_path(self.fspath, mode=importmode)
/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/_pytest/pathlib.py:524: in import_path
    importlib.import_module(module_name)
/usr/lib/python3.8/importlib/__init__.py:127: in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:1014: in _gcd_import
    ???
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:991: in _find_and_load
    ???
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:975: in _find_and_load_unlocked
    ???
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:671: in _load_unlocked
    ???
/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py:170: in exec_module
    exec(co, module.__dict__)
systemd/test/test_login.py:6: in <module>
    from systemd import login
E   ImportError: cannot import name 'login' from 'systemd' (/tmp/portage/dev-python/python-systemd-234-r2/work/python-systemd-234/systemd/__init__.py)

The preferred solution is to change the working directory before running the tests. If tests are installed as a part of the package, they can be discovered through package search e.g. using pytest:

python_test() {
    cd "${T}" || die
    epytest --pyargs systemd
}

If the tests are in a separate directory, an absolute path can be used instead:

python_test() {
    cd "${T}" || die
    epytest "${S}"/test
}

Checklist for dealing with test failures¶

If you see some test failures but do not have a guess as to why they would be happening, try the following for a start:

1. Check upstream CI (if any). That’s a quick way of verifying that there is no known breakage at the relevant tag.

2. Try running tests as your regular user, the way upstream suggests (e.g. via tox). Try using a git checkout at the specific tag. This is the basic way of determining whether the package is actually broken or if it is something on our end.

3. If the tests fail at the specified tag, try upstream master branch. Maybe there was a fix committed.

If it seems that the issue is on our end, try the following and see if it causes the subset of failing tests to change:

1. Make sure that the test runner is started via ${EPYTHON} (the eclass-provided epytest and eunittest wrappers do that). Calling system executables directly (either Python via absolute path or system-installed tools that use absolute path in their shebangs) may cause just-built modules not to be imported correctly.

2. Try running the test suite from another directory. If you’re seeing failures to load compiled extensions, Python may be wrongly importing modules from the current directory instead of the build/install tree. Some test suite also depend on paths relative to where upstream run tests.

3. Either switch to PEP 517 mode (preferred), or add distutils_install_for_testing to the test sub-phase or --install to the distutils_enable_tests call. This resolves the majority of problems that arise from the test suite requiring the package to be installed prior to testing.

4. Actually install the package to the system (with tests disabled). This can confirm cases of package for whom the above function does not work. In the worst case, you can set a test self-dependency to force users to install the package before testing:

   test? ( ~dev-python/myself-${PV} )
   

5. Try testing a different Python implementation. If a subset of tests is failing with Python 3.6, see if it still happens with 3.7 or 3.8. If 3.8 is passing but 3.9 is not, it’s most likely some incompatibility upstream did not account for.

6. Run tests with FEATURES=-network-sandbox. Sometimes lack of Internet access causes non-obvious failures.

7. Try a different test runner. Sometimes the subtle differences in how tests are executed can lead to test failures. But beware: some test runners may not run the full set of tests, so verify that you have actually fixed them and not just caused them to be skipped.

Skipping problematic tests¶

While generally it is preferable to fix tests, sometimes you will face failures that cannot be easily resolved. This especially applies to tests that are broken themselves rather than indicating real problems with the software. However, in some cases you will even find yourself ignoring minor test failures.

Note

When possible, it is preferable to use pytest along with its convenient ignore/deselect options to skip problematic tests. Using pytest instead of unittest is usually possible.

Tests that are known to fail reliably can be marked as expected failures. This has the advantage that the test in question will continue being run and the test suite will report when it unexpectedly starts passing again.

Expected failures are not supported by the standard Python unittest module. It is supported e.g. by pytest.

sed -i -e \
    "/def test_start_params_bug():/(reason='Known to fail on Gentoo')" \
    statsmodels/tsa/tests/test_arima.py || die

Tests that cause inconsistent results, trigger errors, consume horrendous amounts of disk space or cause another kind of undesirable mayhem can be skipped instead. Skipping means that they will not be run at all.

There are multiple ways to skip a test. You can patch it to use a skip decorator, possibly with a condition:

# broken on py2.7, upstream knows
sed -i -e '5a\
import sys' \
    -e '/test_null_bytes/i\
@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.hexversion < 0x03000000, reason="broken on py2")' \
    test/server.py || die

The easy way to skip a test unconditioanlly is to prefix its name with an underscore:

# tests requiring specific locales
sed -i -e 's:test_babel_with_language_:_&:' \
    tests/test_build_latex.py || die
sed -i -e 's:test_polyglossia_with_language_:_&:' \
    tests/test_build_latex.py || die

Finally, if all tests in a particular file are problematic, you can simply remove that file. If all tests belonging to the package are broken, you can use RESTRICT=test to disable testing altogether.

Tests requiring Internet access¶

One of more common causes of test failures are attempts to use Internet. With Portage blocking network access by default, packages performing tests against remote servers often fail.

Ideally, packages would use mocking or replay tests rather than using real Internet services. Devmanual provides a detailed explanation why tests must not use Internet.

Some packages provide explicit methods of disabling network-based tests. For example, dev-python/tox provides a switch for that:

python_test() {
    distutils_install_for_testing
    epytest --no-network
}

There are packages that skip tests if they fail specifically due to connection errors, or detect whether Internet is accessible. Ideally, you should modify those packages to disable network tests unconditionally. For example, dev-python/pygit2 ebuild does this:

# unconditionally prevent it from using network
sed -i -e '/def no_network/a \
    return True' test/utils.py || die

In other cases, you will have to explicitly disable these tests. In some cases, it will be reasonable to remove whole test files or even restrict tests entirely.

If the package’s test suite relies on Internet access entirely and there is no point in running even a subset of tests, please implement running tests and combine test restriction with PROPERTIES=test_network to allow interested users to run tests when possible:

# users can use ALLOW_TEST=network to override this
PROPERTIES="test_network"
RESTRICT="test"

distutils_enable_tests pytest

Tests aborting (due to assertions)¶

There are cases of package’s tests terminating with an unclear error message and backtrace similar to the following:

============================= test session starts ==============================
platform linux -- Python 3.7.8, pytest-6.0.1, py-1.9.0, pluggy-0.13.1 -- /usr/bin/python3.7
cachedir: .pytest_cache
rootdir: /var/tmp/portage/dev-python/sabyenc-4.0.2/work/sabyenc-4.0.2, configfile: pytest.ini
collecting ... collected 24 items

[...]
tests/test_decoder.py::test_crc_pickles PASSED                           [ 54%]
tests/test_decoder.py::test_empty_size_pickles Fatal Python error: Aborted

Current thread 0x00007f748bc47740 (most recent call first):
  File "/var/tmp/portage/dev-python/sabyenc-4.0.2/work/sabyenc-4.0.2/tests/testsupport.py", line 74 in sabyenc3_wrapper
  File "/var/tmp/portage/dev-python/sabyenc-4.0.2/work/sabyenc-4.0.2/tests/test_decoder.py", line 119 in test_empty_size_pickles
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/_pytest/python.py", line 180 in pytest_pyfunc_call
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pluggy/callers.py", line 187 in _multicall
  [...]
  File "/usr/lib/python-exec/python3.7/pytest", line 11 in <module>
/var/tmp/portage/dev-python/sabyenc-4.0.2/temp/environment: line 2934:    66 Aborted                 (core dumped) pytest -vv

This usually indicates that the C code of some Python extension failed an assertion. Since pytest does not print captured output when exiting due to a signal, you need to disable output capture (using -s) to get a more useful error, e.g.:

$ python3.7 -m pytest -s
=============================================================== test session starts ===============================================================
platform linux -- Python 3.7.8, pytest-6.0.1, py-1.9.0, pluggy-0.13.1
rootdir: /tmp/sabyenc, configfile: pytest.ini
plugins: asyncio-0.14.0, forked-1.3.0, xdist-1.34.0, hypothesis-5.23.9, mock-3.2.0, flaky-3.7.0, timeout-1.4.2, freezegun-0.4.2
collected 25 items

tests/test_decoder.py .............python3.7: src/sabyenc3.c:596: decode_usenet_chunks: Assertion `PyByteArray_Check(PyList_GetItem(Py_input_list, lp))' failed.
Fatal Python error: Aborted

Current thread 0x00007fb5db746740 (most recent call first):
  File "/tmp/sabyenc/tests/testsupport.py", line 73 in sabyenc3_wrapper
  File "/tmp/sabyenc/tests/test_decoder.py", line 117 in test_empty_size_pickles
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/_pytest/python.py", line 180 in pytest_pyfunc_call
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pluggy/callers.py", line 187 in _multicall
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pluggy/manager.py", line 87 in <lambda>
  [...]
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pytest/__main__.py", line 7 in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 85 in _run_code
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 193 in _run_module_as_main
Aborted (core dumped)

Now the message clearly indicates the failed assertion.

It is also common that upstream is initially unable to reproduce the bug. This is because Ubuntu and many other common distributions build Python with -DNDEBUG and the flag leaks to extension builds. As a result, all assertions are stripped at build time. Upstream can work around that by explicitly setting CFLAGS for the build, e.g.:

$ CFLAGS='-O0 -g' python setup.py build build_ext -i
$ pytest -s