Config.getini default none value #11282

changelog/11282.bugfix.rst

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Return "None" as the default value if "None" or no default value if provided by the developer.In this approach, existing calls to the getini function would need to check for "None" values.

src/_pytest/config/__init__.py

@@ -1525,6 +1525,8 @@
                     return default
                 if type is None:
                     return ""
+                if type == "string":
+                    return None
                 return []
         else:
             value = override_value

testing/test_conftest.py

@@ -221,6 +221,33 @@ def test_setinitial_conftest_subdirs(pytester: Pytester, name: str) -> None:
         assert len(set(pm.get_plugins()) - {pm}) == 0
 
 
+def test_my_option(pytester: Pytester):
+    pytester.makeconftest(
+        """\
+        import pytest
+        def pytest_addoption(parser):
+            parser.addini(
+                "my_option",
+                type="string",
+                default=None,
+                help="My option",
+            )
+
+        @pytest.fixture(scope='session')
+        def my_option(request):
+            return request.config.getini("my_option")
+        """
+    )
+    pytester.makepyfile(
+        """\
+        def test_x(my_option):
+            assert my_option is None
+        """
+    )
+    res = pytester.runpytest()
+    assert res.ret == 0
+
+
 def test_conftest_confcutdir(pytester: Pytester) -> None:
     pytester.makeconftest("assert 0")
     x = pytester.mkdir("x")