How do I get Pytest to look in my project?

[transcental]

By default, pytest looks in the site-packages folder. This is incredibly annoying as I don't want to upload my package to PyPi just to test it.

Here's my directory tree and the output of pytest -v.

.
|____CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
|____pygitapi
| |______init__.py
| |____utils.py
| |____github.py
|____LICENSE
| |____README.md
| |____.gitignore
|____pyproject.toml
|____tests
| |____test_github.py
|____test.py
|____README.md
|____setup.py
|____.gitignore
|____.env
|____.github
| |____workflows
| | |____pytest.yml
| | |____codeql-analysis.yml
| | |____pypi-upload.yml
|____setup.cfg
|____.all-contributorsrc
|____SECURITY.md

dillonbarnes at Downstairs-iMac in ~/Documents/Coding/GitStats on master!
± pytest -v
======================================================================================== test session starts =========================================================================================
platform darwin -- Python 3.10.0, pytest-7.0.1, pluggy-1.0.0 -- /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/bin/python3.10
cachedir: .pytest_cache
rootdir: /Users/dillonbarnes/Documents/Coding/GitStats
collected 0 items / 1 error                                                                                                                                                                          

=============================================================================================== ERRORS ===============================================================================================
_______________________________________________________________________________ ERROR collecting tests/test_github.py ________________________________________________________________________________
ImportError while importing test module '/Users/dillonbarnes/Documents/Coding/GitStats/tests/test_github.py'.
Hint: make sure your test modules/packages have valid Python names.
Traceback:
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/lib/python3.10/importlib/__init__.py:126: in import_module
    return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
tests/test_github.py:2: in <module>
    from pygitapi import HubAPI
E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pygitapi'
====================================================================================== short test summary info =======================================================================================
ERROR tests/test_github.py
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Interrupted: 1 error during collection !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
========================================================================================== 1 error in 0.11s ==========================================================================================

Is this a bug or just something I'm doing wrong?

[nicoddemus]

Hi @DillonB07,

See https://docs.pytest.org/en/stable/reference/reference.html#confval-norecursedirs, specially:

Additionally, pytest will attempt to intelligently identify and ignore a virtualenv by the presence of an activation script. Any directory deemed to be the root of a virtual environment will not be considered during test collection unless ‑‑collect‑in‑virtualenv is given. Note also that norecursedirs takes precedence over ‑‑collect‑in‑virtualenv; e.g. if you intend to run tests in a virtualenv with a base directory that matches '.*' you must override norecursedirs in addition to using the ‑‑collect‑in‑virtualenv flag.

So not sure why this detection is not working, but regardless you can configure testpaths.

Hope this helps.

[transcental]

Thanks, but you misunderstood the issue. Pytest found my tests, but I was testing a package I was developing. The issue was that it was looking for the package in site-packages rather than the project directory.

[nicoddemus]

I don't think I did, you said:

The issue was that it was looking for the package in site-packages rather than the project directory.

And I pointed out:

Additionally, pytest will attempt to intelligently identify and ignore a virtualenv by the presence of an activation script.

(Emphasis on ignore)

That's why I said I wasn't sure the virtual env detection was not working (and hence pytest ignoring tests on it, as it should), and pointed you to the testpaths configuration variable.

[transcental]

Sorry, I misunderstood the log.

It was just a location issue as jwodder mentioned.

[jwodder]

(Disregard what I wrote earlier; I misunderstood your problem.)

So your problem is that your tests try to import your project source, but it's not found. This isn't a pytest thing; it's a basic Python packaging/importing thing. In order for your package to be importable, it needs to be in sys.path. When you run just pytest, the current directory will not be in sys.path, but it will be if you instead run python -m pytest. (At least, I'm 99% sure that's how it works; I can't find where this is mentioned in the pytest documentation at the moment.) So the simple solution is to run python -m pytest instead of just pytest.

However! This is not good packaging/testing practice. What you should do instead is install your package into a virtualenv that also contains pytest, and run pytest inside that venv. This can be done with tox or its cousin nox. Moreover, you should move your package code (not your tests!) inside a src/ directory in order to ensure that your tests run against the installed version of your package rather than the local copy, which will help you detect errors in packaging; see here and here for more information.

[transcental]

Thanks!

I did originally have my code in a src/ directory, but took it out to try and make pytest work.

Tox did the job perfectly. Thank you!

However, I have a slight issue where even if I pass through my env variable to the GitHubaction tox doesn't pick it up? Is there a solution to this that you know of?

[jwodder]

Tox purges most environment variables in order to produce a consistent environment. You can tell it to preserve a given envvar by setting passenv = NAME_OF_ENVVAR in your [testenv] section.

[transcental]

Thanks. That fixed it!