[SciPy-dev] Making numpy test work in scikits

[David Cournapeau]

Matthieu Brucher wrote:
>
>     Ok, I managed to make it work by doing the following:
>
>     def test_suite(*args):
>         # XXX: this is to avoid recursive call to itself. This is an
>     horrible hack,
>         # I have no idea why infinite recursion happens
>     otherwise.
>         if len(args) >
>     0:
>             import unittest
>             return
>     unittest.TestSuite()
>         return NumpyTest().test(level = -10)
>
>     Now, I have to understand why it does not work when I give the
>     all=True
>     argument to NumpyTest().test. I am starting to think it would be much
>     easier to build test suite by hand for each test script...
>
>
> I just tried to use this for openopt scikit, and strangely the first 
> time it didn't work with testall(), the second time, it worked...
> I found something strange though (latest svn). When the level is 
> positive, the tests are found and run, but when the level is negative, 
> the files are found, but not the tests (it indicates Found 0 tests for 
> ....py). Is that correct ? 
It is intended if you read the docstring (I totally missed it too, at 
first). If level is negative, then it is equivalent to returning all the 
test corresponding to abs(level) in a test suite, without running them.

As I do not want to run the tests, just the testsuite, I passed level 
-10 (which is supposed to return all the tests at all level, if I 
understand correctly). I agree this is not really intuitive.
> I thought the same number of tests should have been found.
> What is more, if specific data is needed for the test (and is in the 
> same folder), you have to specify the full path in your test file 
> because the current path is set to the folder where the test suite is 
> run, not where the current test is placed. It's not due to Numpy, I 
> know, but it adds a burden :|
Are you aware of set_local_path ? I used it when I need to use the same 
function/global variables accross several test files. You can see an 
example in the learn scikits (scikits/learn/machine/em/test_densities).

set_local_path()
# import modules that are located in the same directory as this file.
from testcommon import DEF_DEC
restore_path()

This is basically a hack to put the current path (or any other relative 
path you give to set_local_path function) in sys.path so that they are 
found by the python interpreter.

cheers,

David