item vs node - what's the difference

[f00dog-x300]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get a better understanding on how some of the pytest hook work. I don't understand what the difference is between using item v node. What's the use case for either of these?

Thanks in advance.
Kev

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

nodes is anything thats part of the collection tree, (files, modules, classes)

items are the leaves of that tree and the individual tests

[The-Compiler]

Since I happen to have a picture of this lying around as part of my pytest trainings already:

[f00dog-x300]

Thank @The-Compiler and @RonnyPfannschmidt !
Can any pytest hook use either or are there specific hooks that one can use but not the other? I'm looking at basically trying to perform a REST call if a test passes or if it fails.

Also I may be misunderstanding something potentially - does one or the other collect the information while the test is running or after all tests are completed?

Edit: The s on my keyboard seems to not be working properly today so I had to fix a few typos.