pytest-virtualenv

Py.test Virtualenv Fixture

Create a Python virtual environment in your test that cleans up on teardown. The fixture has utility methods to install packages and list what's installed.

Installation

Install using your favourite package installer:

    pip install pytest-virtualenv
    # or
    easy_install pytest-virtualenv

Enable the fixture explicitly in your tests or conftest.py (not required when using setuptools entry points):

    pytest_plugins = ['pytest_virtualenv']

Configuration

This fixture is configured using the following evironment variables

Setting	Description	Default
VIRTUALENV_FIXTURE_EXECUTABLE	Which virtualenv executable will be used to create new venvs	virtualenv

Fixture Attributes

Here's a noddy test case to demonstrate the basic fixture attributes. For more information on path.py see https://pathpy.readthedocs.io/

def test_virtualenv(virtualenv):
    # the 'virtualenv' attribute is a `path.py` object for the root of the virtualenv
    dirnames = virtualenv.virtualenv.dirs()
    assert {'bin', 'include', 'lib'}.intersection(set(dirnames))
    
    # the 'python' attribute is a `path.py` object for the python executable
    assert virtualenv.python.endswith('/bin/python')

Installing Packages

You can install packages by name and query what's installed.

def test_installing(virtualenv):
    virtualenv.install_package('coverage', installer='pip')
    
    # installed_packages() will return a list of `PackageEntry` objects.
    assert 'coverage' in [i.name for i in virtualenv.installed_packages()]

Developing Source Checkouts

Any packages set up in the test runner's python environment (ie, the same runtime that py.test is installed in) as source checkouts using python setup.py develop will be detected as such and can be installed by name using install_package. By default they are installed into the virtualenv using python setup.py develop, there is an option to build and install an egg as well:

def test_installing_source(virtualenv):
    # Install a source checkout of my_package as an egg file
    virtualenv.install_package('my_package',  build_egg=True)

Running Commands

The test fixture has a run method which allows you to run commands with the correct paths set up as if you had activated the virtualenv first.

def test_run(virtualenv):
    python_exe_path  = virtualenv.python
    runtime_exe = virtualenv.run("python -c 'import sys; print sys.executable'", capture=True)
    assert runtime_exe == python_exe_path

Running Commands With Coverage

The test fixture has a run_with_coverage method which is like run but runs the command under coverage inside the virtualenv. This is useful for capturing test coverage on tools that are being tested outside the normal test runner environment.

def test_coverage(virtualenv):
    # You will have to install coverage first
    virtualenv.install_package(coverage)
    virtualenv.run_with_coverage(["my_entry_point", "--arg1", "--arg2"])