[Python-Dev] Cleaning-up the new unittest API (original) (raw)
Raymond Hettinger raymond.hettinger at gmail.com
Sat Oct 30 05:14:27 CEST 2010
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The API for the unittest module has grown fat (the documentation is approaching 2,000 lines and 10,000 words like a small book). I think we can improve learnability by focusing on the most important parts of the API.
I would like to simplify and clean-up the API for the unittest module by de-documenting assertSetEqual(), assertDictEqual(), assertListEqual, and assertTupleEqual().
All of those methods are already called automatically by
assertEqual(), so those methods never need to be called directly.
Or, if you need to be more explicit about the type checking for
sequences, the assertSequenceEqual() method will suffice.
Either way, there's no need to expose the four type specific methods.
Besides de-documenting those four redundant methods, I propose that assertItemsEqual() be deprecated just like its brother assertSameElements(). I haven't found anyone who accurately guesses what those methods entail based on their method names ("items" usually implies key/value pairs elsewhere in the language; nor is it clear whether order is important, whether the elements need to be hashable or orderable or just define equality tests, nor is is clear whether duplicates cause the test to fail).
Given the purpose of the unittest module, it's important that the reader have a crystal clear understanding of what a test is doing. Their attention needs to be focused on the subject of the test, not on questioning the semantics of the test method.
IMO, users are far better-off sticking with assertEqual() so they can be specific about the nature of the test:
hashable elements; ignore dups
assertEqual(set(a), set(b))
orderable elements; dups matter, order doesn't
assertEqual(sorted(a), sorted(b))
eq tested elements, dups matter, order matters
assertEqual(list(a), list(b))
hashable keys, eq tested values
ignore dups, ignore order
assertEqual(dict(a), dict(b))
These take just a few more characters than assertSameElements()
and assertItemsEqual(), but they are far more clear about their meaning.
You won't have to second guess what semantics are hidden
behind the abstraction.
There are a couple other problems with the new API but it is probably too late to do anything about it.
elsewhere in Python we spell comparison names with abbreviations like eq, ne, lt, le, gt, ge. In unittest, those are spelled in an awkward, not easily remembered manner: assertLessEqual(a, b), etc.
Fortunately, it's clear what the mean; however, it's not easy to guess their spelling.the names for assertRegexpMatches() and assertNotRegexpMatches are deeply misleading since they are implemented in terms of re.search(), not re.match().
Raymond
P.S. I also looked ar assertDictContainsSubset(a,b). It is a bit over-specialized, but at least it is crystal clear what is does and it beats the awkward alternative using dict views:
assertLessEqual(a.items(), b.items())
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