A Practical Introduction to pytest

A ten minute talk on pytest. With time for questions.

Audience: people who have done at least a small amount of Python coding. I do not expect you to have written tests or used testing tools.

You can test your Python code with pytest, one of the leading systems for testing Python code. Here I will gently introduce you to pytest with practical examples. As pytest themselves put it:

pytest: helps you write better programs

What is pytest?

See https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/

How do I install pytest?

With conda:

conda create --name pytest-talk pytest

With plain old virtualenv:

python -m venv pytest-demo
. pytest-demo/bin/activate
pip install pytest

In a project that has already been setup with some basic level of package management, you might find that it already has a system for installing dependencies and tools.

Why should I use pytest?

Testing increases confidence (in your estimate of software quality). pytest makes testing systematic.

Can be incorporate into an automatic testing system, on every push. Can be used as a gated check for release: continuous integration.

How do I use pytest?

pytest

What are the alternatives?

unittest

, hypothesis, doctest, and the older nosetest.

Also, may be embedded in a larger scope framework like tox.