Test Toolbox Quickstart

This page documents how to quickly utilize one or more of the components packaged in the test toolbox library to enhance your Python tests.

“test_toolbox.bdd”

This module contains the “behavior driven development” helper object, appropriately named “BDD”. This module is inspired by the ScalaTest implementation of BDD primitives; more on the ScalaTest and BDD may be found here.

To get started with this library, import the BDD class from the test_toolbox.bdd module,

from test_toolbox.bdd import BDD

This BDD object should work with all major Python testing frameworks, included the standard library unittest and the popular pytest framework. An example of how to use the the BDD object is given below, in a sample unittest.

from unittest import TestCase
import os

class MyTestCase(TestCase):
    def test_foo(self):
        with BDD.scenario("I have some pipes and want to send data") as bdd:
            bdd.given("I create a new unix pipe)
            read_fd, write_fd = os.pipe()
            test_data = b"foobar"

            bdd.and("I write some data to the write file descriptor")
            os.write(write_fd, test_data)

            bdd.then("I should be able to read the data back from the read file descriptor")
            assert os.read(read_fd, 512) == test_data

Additionally, each of the clauses may also be used as a with statement, allowing sub-clauses as follows:

from unittest import TestCase
import os

class MyTestCase(TestCase):
    def test_foo(self):
        with BDD.scenario("I have some pipes and want to send data") as bdd:
            with bdd.given("I create a new unix pipe) as clause:
                read_fd, write_fd = os.pipe()
                test_data = b"foobar"

                clause.and("I close the read fd")
                os.close(read_fd)

            bdd.then("who knows what happens when I write data")
            os.write(write_fd, test_data)

with statements may be used with any of the clauses, even if new BDD sub-clauses are not created, for the purpose of enhancing test readability. The valid BDD “words” you may use to form clauses are:

• given
• when
• then
• also
• and_
• but

More words may be added (please open a pull request) if sensible and desired.

“test_toolbox.helpers”

TODO

“test_toolbox.output”

TODO

“test_toolbox.spy”

TODO

“test_toolbox.unittest.testflow”

TODO