[Biopython-dev] run_tests.py rewrite

[Giovanni Marco Dall'Olio]

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Michiel de Hoon <mjldehoon at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I just uploaded to CVS a rewritten version of Tests/run_tests.py. This new version automatically detects whether a test is a unittest-style test or a print-and-compare test. By doing so, the unittest-style tests no longer need to have a file containing the test output in Tests/output. For users, run_tests.py works essentially the same as before.

ok:
- it seems it doesn't support doctest yet.

- how this run_tests script is supposed to be called? Can you add this
information in run_tests's docstring?
If I run it from the biopython main directory (python
Tests/run_tests.py) it gives me an error on test_AlignAce, but if I
run it from within the Tests directory, it retunrs me an import error
on test_CAPS.

- some tests have some docstring associated. It would be more useful
if, along with the name, you print these docs.
For example, instead of:
test_ACE ... ok
It would be nice to see:
test_ACE (tests the ACE module for .... which does ...) .... ok
again, nose does this already.

- while you are at it, it would be nice to be able to define some
global fixtures for all tests.
Something like setup_BioSQL ran only once and with a warning that it
has been created.
nose already does that by using the @classmethod syntax - it's not
very intuitive at first but it works.

There is something that has never been clear to me about biopython's doctest.
Are they supposed to be ran by the developers only, or by the users
who install biopython manually?
Some of the test seems to be written to check whether biopython can
run on the user's computer correctly, others are tests on the code.

>
> As changing the test framework is tricky business, I'd like to ask you to be careful with the Biopython tests, in particular to make sure that there are no bugs in the testing framework that would let test failures go unnoticed. If no problems show up in the next few weeks, we can start removing the output files of unittest-style tests from Biopython, as they're no longer needed.
>
> --Michiel.
>
>
>
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