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Unit Testing Tools

Tool

Category

Author

Part of

Claim to fame

unittest

unit testing

Steve Purcell

Python standard lib

first unit test framework to be included in Python standard library; easy to use by people familiar with the xUnit frameworks; strong support for test organization and reuse via test suites

doctest

unit testing

Tim Peters

Python standard lib

copy and paste output from shell session; Agile Documentation: unit tests themselves can serve as documentation when combined with epydoc; also see Django's approach

pytest

unit testing

Holger Krekel

It used to be named py.test which was part of the pylib. Standalone now.

no API!;automatic collection of tests; simple asserts; strong support for test fixture/state management via setup/teardown hooks; strong debugging support via customized traceback

nose

unittest extensions

Jason Pellerin

unit test framework, used most notably by TurboGears and Pylons; provides an alternate test discovery and running process for unittest, one that is intended to mimic the behavior of py.test as much as is reasonably possible without resorting to too much magic. More friendly with unittest.TestCase-based tests than py.test. There are also many plugins available.

testify

unittest extensions

Yelp team

unit test framework, provides Enhanced test fixture setup, Split test suites into buckets for easy parallelization, PEP8 naming conventions & Fancy color test runner with lots of logging / reporting option.

Trial

unittest extensions

Jonathan Lange

Twisted

Extension of unittest to support writing asynchronous unit tests using Deferreds and new result types ('skip' and 'todo'). Includes a command-line program that does test discovery and integrates with doctest and coverage.

subunit

unittest extensions

Robert Collins

Transparently adds support for running unittest test cases/suites in a separate process : prevents system wide changes by a test destabilising the test runner. It also allows reporting from tests in another process into the unittest framework, giving a single integrated test environment.

testresources

unittest extensions

Robert Collins

Provides a mechanism for managing 'resources' - expensive bits of infrastructure - that are needed by multiple tests. Resources are constructed and free on demand, but with an optional TestSuite?, the test run order is optimised to reduce the number of resource constructions and releases needed. Compatible with unittest.

reahl.tofu

unit testing

Iwan Vosloo

Provides class based test Fixtures, in which several (usually interrelated) objects that need to be set up for tests are lumped together on a single object, called a Fixture. Fixtures are reusable and can depend on other Fixtures in turn. Fixtures can be used with any test framework, but easy integration is provided for pytest. A few other test utilities are included as well.

testtools

unittest extensions

Jonathan Lange

Useful extensions to unittest derived from custom extensions by projects such as Twisted and Bazaar.

Sancho

unit testing

MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange

MEMS Exchange tools

Sancho 2.1 runs tests, and provides output for tests that fail; Sancho 2.1 does not count tests passed or failed; targets projects that do not maintain failing tests

zope.testing

unit testing

Zope3 community

Powerful test runner that includes support for post-mortem debugging of test failures. Also includes profiling and coverage reporting. This is a standalone package that has no dependencies on Zope and works just fine with projects that don't use Zope.

pry

unit testing

Aldo Cortesi

Elegant unit testing framework with built-in coverage analysis, profiling, micro-benchmarking and a powerful command-line interface.

pythoscope

unit testing

Michal Kwiatkowski

Tool that will automatically, or semi-automatically, generate unit tests for legacy systems written in Python.

testlib

unittest extensions

Logilab

logilab-common

Gives more power to standard unittest. More assert* methods; support for module level setup/teardown; skip test feature...

pytest

tests runner

Logilab

logilab-common

Tests finder / runner. Selectivly run tests; Stop on first failure; Run pdb on failed tests; Colorized reports; Run tests with coverage / profile enabled...

dutest

unittest extensions

Olemis Lang

PyOOP package (distributed separately too)

An object oriented interface to retrieve unittest test cases out of doctests. Hides initialization from doctests by allowing setUp and tearDown for each interactive example. Allows control over all the options provided by doctest. Specialized classes allow selective test discovery across a package hierarchy.

The following tools are not currently being developed or maintained as far as we can see. They are here for completeness, with last activity date and an indication of what documentation there is. If you know better, please edit.

Tool

Last Activity

Category

Author

Claim to fame

TestOOB

2009

unittest extensions

Ori Peleg

unittest enhancements; test filtering via regex/glob patterns; reporting in XML/HTML; colorized output; runs pdb on failing tests; run in parallel in threads/processes; verbose asserts; report failures immediately; and a little more;

pyUnitPerf

2009

performance-based unit testing

Grig Gheorghiu

port of JUnitPerf; transparently adds performance testing capabilities to existing unitttest-based test suites

Peckcheck

2008

specification-based unit testing

Darius Bacon

like the unittest module, except that test methods may take arguments; you declare each argument with a default value which names a test-data generator and the peckcheck module will peck at your test methods with a bunch of generated values

testosterone

2008

unit testing

Chad Whitacre

A manly test runner; command-line and curses(3) interfaces; the iPod of test runners. (More seriously, makes it easier to browse and inspect your test failures)

qunittest

2004

unit testing

Edgewall

Easy-to-use (PyQt) GUI framework and application for use with the Python unit testing framework. It can be used to conveniently execute unit tests and suites, and then display the results in a useful fashion.

Mock Testing Tools

See also here for a side-by-side syntax comparison between some of the more popular tools in this space.

Tool

Category

Author

Claim to fame

Ludibrio

mocks, stubs, spy, and dummies

Gustavo Rezende

Elegant test doubles framework in Python (mocks, stubs, spy, and dummies)

Python Mock

mock testing

Dave Kirby

Python Mock enables the easy creation of mock objects that can be used to emulate the behaviour of any class that the code under test depends on. You can set up expectations about the calls that are made to the mock object, and examine the history of calls made. This makes it easier to unit test classes in isolation. Download it here.

PyMock

mock testing

Jeff Younker

PyMock is based on the Java easymock package. It uses a recording and replay model rather than using a specification language. Easymock lives up to its name compared to other mocking packages. PyMock takes advantage of python's dynamic nature for futher improvements.

mock

mock testing

Michael Foord aka Fuzzyman

Provides "action -> assertion" mocking patter, instead of standard "record -> replay" pattern

pMock

mock testing

Graham Carlyle

Inspired by the Java jMock library, pMock makes the writing of unit tests using mock object techniques easier. Development of pmock has long since stopped and so it can be considered dead.

minimock

mock testing

Ian Bicking

Embeds mock testing constructs inside doctest tests.

svnmock

mock testing

Collin Winter

enables easier testing of Python programs that make use of Subversion's Python bindings

Mocker

mock testing

Gustavo Niemeyer

Graceful platform for test doubles in Python (mocks, stubs, fakes, and dummies). Well-documented and fairly feature-complete.

Stubble

stub testing

Iwan Vosloo

Stubble allows you to write arbitrary classes for use as stubs instead of read classes while testing. Stubble lets you link a stub class loosely to the real class which it is a stub for. This information is then used to ensure that tests will break if there is a discrepancy between the interface supported by your stub class and that of the real class it stands in for.

Mox

mock testing

smiddlek, dglasser

Mox is based on EasyMock, a Java mock object framework. Mox will make mock objects for you, so you don't have to create your own! It mocks the public/protected interfaces of Python objects. You set up your mock objects expected behavior using a domain specific language (DSL), which makes it easy to use, understand, and refactor!

MockTest

mock testing

Tim Cuthbertson (gfxmonk)

Mocktest allows you to mock / stub objects and make expectations about the methods you expect to be called as well as the arguments they should be called with. Expectations are very readable and expressive, and checked automatically. Any stubbed methods are reverted after each test case. Still under development, so subject to change

Fudge

mock and stub testing

Kumar McMillan

A module for using fake objects (mocks, stubs, etc) to test real ones. Uses a declrative syntax like jMock whereby you set up expectations for how an object should be used. An error will raise if an expectation is not met.

Mockito for Python

mock and stub testing

Szczepan Faber

A port of the Mockito mocking framework to Python. (Technically speaking, Mockito is a Test Spy framework.)

CaptureMock

mock testing

Geoff Bache

True record-replay approach to mocking. Requires no coding, just telling it which modules/attributes you want to mock. Then stores the behaviour in an external file, which can be used to test the code without those modules installed.

flexmock

mock/stub/spy testing and fake objects

Herman Sheremetyev

Port of the popular Ruby mocking library to Python. Includes automatic integration with most popular test runners.

doublex

easy and powerful stubs, spies and mocks

David Villa

Free and restricted doubles using hamcrest matchers for all assertions. It provides a wrapper for the pyDoubles framework.

aspectlib

spies and mock responses

Ionel Cristian Mărieș

Lightweight spies and mock responses, and a capture/replay framework (via the Story/Replay context managers).

Fuzz Testing Tools

According to Wikipedia, "fuzz testing" (or "fuzzing") is a software testing technique whose basic idea is to attach the inputs of a program to a source of random data ("fuzz"). If the program fails (for example, by crashing, or by failing built-in code assertions), then there are defects to correct. The great advantage of fuzz testing is that the test design is extremely simple, and free of preconceptions about system behavior.

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

Hypothesis

David R. MacIver

Hypothesis combines unit testing and fuzz testing by letting you write tests parametrized by random data matching some specification. It then finds and minimizes examples that make your tests fail.

Pester

Ivan Moore

Tests your tests by mutating source code and finding tests that don't fail!

Peach Fuzzer Framework

Michael Eddington

Peach can fuzz just about anything from .NET, COM/ActiveX, SQL, shared libraries/DLL's, network applications, web, you name it.

antiparser

dmckinney

The purpose of antiparser is to provide an API that can be used to model network protocols and file formats by their composite data types. Once a model has been created, the antiparser has various methods for creating random sets of data that deviates in ways that will ideally trigger software bugs or security vulnerabilities.

Taof (The Art Of Fuzzing)

rodrigomarcos

Taof is a GUI cross-platform Python generic network protocol fuzzer. It has been designed for minimizing set-up time during fuzzing sessions and it is specially useful for fast testing of proprietary or undocumented protocols.

Fusil (Fusil the fuzzer)

Victor Stinner

It helps to start process with a prepared environment (limit memory, environment variables, redirect stdout, etc.), start network client or server, and create mangled files. Fusil has many probes to detect program crash: watch process exit code, watch process stdout and syslog for text patterns (eg. "segmentation fault"), watch session duration, watch cpu usage (process and system load), etc.

PyFuzzer

Erik Moqvist

Use libFuzzer to fuzz test Python 3.6+ C extension modules.

Web Testing Tools

First, let's define some categories of Web testing tools:

Tool

Category

Author

Part of

Claim to fame

twill

Browser simulation & In-process

Titus Brown

offers simple commands for navigating Web pages, posting forms and asserting conditions; can be used as shell script or Python module; can be used for unit-testing your own Web app

webunit

Browser simulation

Richard Jones

HTTP, HTTPS, GET, POST, basic auth all handled; control over expected status codes; uses unittest as the underlying framework

FunkLoad

Browser simulation

Benoit Delbosc / Nuxeo

functional/performance/load/stress testing for Web applications; easy test creation using TCPWatch as proxy recorder; reporting capabilities; based on webunit

zope.testbrowser

Browser simulation

Benji York

Zope 3

designed to be used in doctests that mirror user actions (see the README.txt for examples); can also be used as standalone Web testing tool outside of Zope 3

webtest

Browser simulation

Robert Brewer

CherryPy

extensions to unittest for web frameworks; uses https://docs.python.domainunion.de/lib/module-httplib.html httplib]

PAMIE

Browser automation

Robert Marchetti

automates Internet Explorer by manipulating IE's Document Object Model via COM

PyXPCOM

Browser automation

Mark Hammond

provides Python XPCOM bindings for automating Mozilla browsers

paste.test.fixture

In-process

Ian Bicking

Paste

lets you test your WSGI applications without a server; similar in feel to zope.testbrowser

DjangoTesting

In-process

Georg Bauer

DjangoStuff

very simple and small testing framework for Django applications, based on the ideas of the Ruby on Rails testing framework; fully based on unittest, so you don't need anything beside Django and Python to make use of it

ibofobi.utils.test

In-process

Sune Kirkeby

testing framwework for Django applications; built on top of doctest instead of unittest; fixtures are written in YAML not Python code; implemented simple request/response tests on top of Beautiful Soup

wsgi-intercept

In-process

Kumar McMillan

This library lets you intercept calls to any specific host/port combination and redirect them into a WSGI application

windmill

Browser Automation

Windmill Community

Cross-Platform and Cross-Browser web automation tool, supports Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE on Mac, Linux and Windows. Written in Python, test authoring libraries in Python and JavaScript. Active community, #windmill on irc.freenode.org

Selenium

Browser Automation

Selenium Community

Cross-Platform and Cross-Browser web automation tool, supports Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE on Mac, Linux and Windows. Written in Java with Python bindings. Active community, #selenium on irc.freenode.org Documentation,API

SST

Browser Automation

Canonical Online Services Team

SST (selenium-simple-test) is a web test framework that uses Python to generate functional browser-based tests

Splinter

Browser Automation and Simulation

Cobrateam

Splinter is cross-browser and cross-platform, supports chrome, firefox, zope.testbrowser and phantomjs.

Loads

Automation

Tarek Ziadé and Alexis

framework for distributed load testing an HTTP service

WebTest

Browser simulation

Gael Pasgrimaud

Pylons Project

Test your web applications without starting an HTTP server, and without poking into the web framework shortcutting pieces of your application that need to be tested. The tests WebTest runs are entirely equivalent to how a WSGI HTTP server would call an application.

Acceptance/Business Logic Testing Tools

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

behave

Benno Rice and Richard Jones

A Pythonic tool for aiding Behaviour-Driven Development supporting tests written in the Gherkin language (Cucumber).

PyFIT

John Roth

port of FIT; supports both FIT and FitNesse; acceptance tests for business logic written as HTML or Wiki tables

TextTest

Geoff Bache

works by comparing plain text logged by programs with a previous 'gold standard' version of that text; the tool itself is written in Python but it can be used to test programs written in any language; comes with extensive self tests which serve as examples of how to use it. Plugins for testing GUIs (see PyUseCase)

Lettuce

Gabriel Falcão

port of https://cukes.info/ supporting acceptance tests in Cucumber format, including tabular feature files and JUnit xml output.

FitLoader

Ian Bicking

A (rather alpha-ish) library for loading tests from Excel or CSV files; not really a framework, but useful for acceptance tests written by non-programmers

Robot Framework

Pekka Klärck

Robot Framework is a keyword-driven test automation framework for acceptance level testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). It has an easy-to-use tabular syntax for creating test cases and its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented either with Python or Java (requires Jython). Users can also create new keywords from existing ones using the same simple syntax that is used for creating test cases.

GUI Testing Tools

The following tools were being actively developed and maintained when this page was last edited, and have usable documentation.

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

guibot

Intra2net AG

A tool for GUI automation using a variety of computer vision and desktop control backends.. Free.

Automa

BugFree Software

Simplest GUI automation with Python on Windows. Lets you automate your computer with simple commands such as start, click and write. Proprietary.

ldtp

team members

Uses the X11 accessability framework (AT-SPI) to drive applications so works well with the gnome desktop on Unixes. Has extensive tests for the evolution groupware client.

pywinauto

Mark McMahon

Simple Windows (NT/2K/XP) GUI automation with Python. There are tests included for Localization testing but there is no limitation to this. Most of the code at the moment is for recovering information from Windows windows and performing actions on those controls. The idea is to have high level methods for standard controls rather then rely on Sending keystrokes to the applications.

ATOMac

Team members

OS X Cocoa accessibility based automation library for Mac

PyUseCase

Geoff Bache

Domain-language based UI testing framework with a recorder. Generates plain-text descriptions (ASCII art) of what the GUI looks like during the test, intended to be used in conjunction with TextTest (see above). Mechanism for being able to record synchronisation points. Currently has mature support for PyGTK, beta status support for SWT/Eclipse RCP and Tkinter, and an early prototype for wxPython. Swing support is being developed.

SikuliX

Raimund Hocke (aka RaiMan) and the open-source community

Python scripts and visual technology to automate and test graphical user interfaces using screenshot images (api for java available)

The following tools are not currently being developed or maintained as far as we can see. They are here for completeness, with last activity date and an indication of what documentation there is. If you know better, please edit.

Tool

Last Activity

Docs

Author

Claim to fame

dogtail

2013

Good

Zack Cerza

Created by Redhat engineers on linux. Uses the X11 accessability framework (AT-SPI) to drive applications so works well with the gnome desktop on Unixes. Has flash movies

WATSUP

2005

Good

Dr Tim Couper

Windows Application Test System Using Python - another Windows GUI automation tool.

guitest

2005

Limited

Gintautas Miliauskas

Python helper library for testing Python GUI applications, with pyGTK support being the most mature

pyAA

2005

Limited

Peter Parente

pyAA is an object oriented Python wrapper around the client-side functionality in the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) library. MSAA is a library for the Windows platform that allows client applications inspect, control, and monitor events and controls in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and server applications to expose runtime information about their user interfaces. See the User interface automation with pyAA tutorial for more info.

pyGUIUnit

2004

No

Fabio Zadrozny

aims to be a gui unittesting library for python; initially provided solely for PyQt, but it may be extended in the future

winGuiAuto

2003

No

Simon Brunning

Low-level library for Windows GUI automation used by PAMIE and WATSUP.

Source Code Checking Tools

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

PyChecker

Eric Newton and Neal Norwitz

finds problems that are typically caught by a compiler for less dynamic languages; imports each module before checking it

Pylint

Sylvain Thénault / Logilab

includes PyChecker checks, plus more features, like checking line-code's length, checking if variable names are well-formed according to your coding standard, or checking if declared interfaces are truly implemented

Pyflakes

Phil Frost / Divmod

similar to PyChecker; focused on identifying common errors quickly without executing Python code; its primary advantage over PyChecker is that it is fast: it runs on most large projects in only a few seconds

Clone Digger

Peter Bulychev & Marius Minea

Clone Digger aims to detect similar code in Python and Java programs. The synonyms for the term similar code are clone and duplicate code.

pep8

Johann C. Rocholl

pep8 is a tool to check your Python code against some of the style conventions in PEP 8.

Code Coverage Tools

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

coverage

Ned Batchelder

measures code coverage during Python execution; uses the code analysis tools and tracing hooks provided in the Python standard library to determine which lines are executable, and which have been executed

figleaf

Titus Brown

figleaf is a Python code coverage analysis tool, built somewhat on the model of Ned Batchelder's fantastic coverage module. The goals of figleaf are to be a minimal replacement of 'coverage.py' that supports more configurable coverage gathering and reporting; figleaf is useful for situations where you are recording code coverage in multiple execution runs and/or want to tweak the reporting output

trace2html

Olivier Grisel

HTML test coverage reporting tool with white and blacklisting support

coverage langlet

Kay Schluehr

The coverage langlet weaves monitoring commands, so called sensors, into source code during global source transformation. When a statement is covered the weaved sensor responds. The coverage langlet is part of EasyExtend

pry

Aldo Cortesi

Elegant unit testing framework with built-in coverage analysis, profiling, micro-benchmarking and a powerful command-line interface.

instrumental

Matthew Desmarais

Instrumental is a Python code coverage tool that measures statement, decision, and condition/decision coverage during code execution. Instrumental works by modifying the AST on import and adding function calls that record the circumstances under which code is executed.

Continuous Integration Tools

Although not properly a part of testing tools, continuous integration tools are nevertheless an important addition to a tester's arsenal.

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

buildbot

Brian Warner

buildbot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most software projects to validate code changes. By automatically rebuilding and testing the tree each time something has changed, build problems are pinpointed quickly, before other developers are inconvenienced by the failure.

Bitten

Christopher Lenz

Bitten is a Python-based framework for collecting various software metrics via continuous integration. It builds on Trac to provide an integrated web-based user interface.

SVNChecker

Heinrich Wendel of German Aerospace Center

SVNChecker is a framework for Subversion pre-commit hooks in order to implement checks of the to be commited files before they are commited. For example, you can check for the code style or unit tests. The output of the checks can be send by mail or be written into a file or simply print to the console.

apycot

Logilab

an Automated Pythonic Code Tester: designed to run tests on a code repository on a daily basis. It comes with a set of predefined test, essentially for python packages, and a set of predefined reports to display execution results. However, it has been designed to be higly extensible, so you could write your own test or report using the Python language

pony-build

Titus Brown

pony-build is a simple continuous integration package that lets you run a server to display client build results. It consists of two components, a server (which is run in some central & accessible location), and one or more clients (which must be able to contact the server via HTTP). Philosophy statement: good development tools for Python should be easy to install, easy to hack, and not overly constraining. Two out of three ain't bad ;).

tox

Holger Krekel

Tox is a generic virtualenv management and test command line tool. You can use it to check that your package installs correctly with different Python versions and interpreters, to configure your test tool of choice and to act as a frontend to Continuous Integration servers. Documentation and examples here.

KREM

Bitvis

KREM is a very lightweight automation framework. KREM is also suitable for testing. KREM runs jobs made up of tasks executed in sequence, in parallel or a combination of both.

Automatic Test Runners

Tools that run tests automatically on file changes. Provides continuous feedback during development before continuous integration tools act on commits.

Tool

Author

Claim to fame

nosier

Meme Dough

Monitors paths and upon detecting changes runs the specified command. The command may be any test runner. Uses Linux inotify so it is fast with no disk churn.

nosy

Doug Latornell

Run the nose test discovery and execution tool whenever a source file is changed.

nosyd

Jeff Winkler & Jerome Lacoste

A _minimalist_ personal command line friendly CI server. Automatically runs your build whenever one of the monitored files of the monitored projects has changed.

PyZen

Noah Kantrowitz

Continuous testing for paranoid developers.

Test Fixtures

Tool

Author

Part of

Claim to fame

fixture

Kumar McMillan

module for loading and referencing test data

Django Fixtures

Russell Keith-Magee

django

A test case for a database-backed website isn't much use if there isn't any data in the database. To make it easy to put test data into the database, Django provides a fixtures framework.

testfixtures

Chris Withers

A collection of helpers and mock objects for unit tests and doc tests

kt.testing

Fred Drake

Test support composition, providing for fixture-specific APIs with unittest.TestCase.

Miscellaneous Python Testing Tools

Tool

Author

Part of

Claim to fame

retest

Christof Hoeke

enables tests of Python regular expressions in a web browser; it uses SimpleHTTPServer and AJAX

pyreb

Giuseppe "Cowo" Corbelli

a wxPython GUI to the re module

kodos

Phil Schwartz

a QT (KDE) Regular Expression Debugger

paste TestFileEnvironment

Ian Bicking

Paste

A simple environment for testing command-line applications, running commands and seeing what files they write to

Heapy

Sverker Nilsson

Guppy-PE

supports profiling, debugging and optimization regarding memory related issues in Python programs

PySizer

Nick Smallbone

a memory usage profiler for Python code

Meliae

John A Meinel

Memory profiling of Python processes, memory dumps can be viewed in RunSnakerun

PyMetrics

Reginald B. Charney

Generates metrics (e.g. McCabe, LoC, %comments, etc.) for Python code.

complexity

Curt Finch

Analyzes cyclomatic complexity of Python code (written in Perl)

qmtest

CodeSourcery

test and automation framework, in python

consoletest

Kay Schluehr

EasyExtend

Records interactive sessions and extracts test cases when they get replayed

AllPairs

MetaCommunications

Test combinations generator (in python) that allows to create set of tests using 'pairwise combinations' method, which reduces a number of combinations of variables into a lesser set which covers most situations. See https://www.pairwise.org/ for more info on this functional testing technique.

PyModel

Jon Jacky

Model-based testing framework where the models are written in Python. PyModel supports offline and on-the-fly testing. It uses composition for scenario control. Coverage can be guided by a programmable strategy.

PythonTestingToolsTaxonomy (last edited 2023-10-19 08:09:31 by IwanVosloo)

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