How to get a pytest fixture interactively?

Question

How to import or otherwise bind a pytest fixture for interactive use, without using breakpoints?

For example, I want to explore some behaviours of the tmpdir_factory fixture in the REPL.

from pytest import tmpdir_factory  # note: this doesn't actually work

# setup / context has already been entered
tmpdir_factory.ensure('exists.txt', file=True)  # I can use the fixture
del tmpdir_factory  # teardown will eventually be called

In the case of tmpdir I already know it's just a py.path.local instance, but I'm interested in the general question for user defined fixtures too.

---

edit: Another acceptable interface:

from magical_module import inject_fixture
tmpdir_factory = inject_fixture('tmpdir_factory')

---

edit: an MCVE to show whether context has exited or not:

# conftest.py
from datetime import datetime
import pytest

@pytest.fixture
def my_fixture():
    obj = {'setup': datetime.now()}
    yield (obj, f'yielded @ {datetime.now()!r}')
    obj['teardown'] = datetime.now()

Answer 1

Call IPython.embed() to drop into IPython's REPL, and use the request fixture's getfixturevalue() method to access arbitrary fixture values

def test_stuff(request):
    from IPython import embed
    embed()

Note: pytest must be run with the -s flag to disable capturing of stdout/stderr

$ pytest -s
============================= test session starts ==============================
platform linux -- Python 3.6.2, pytest-3.2.1, py-1.4.34, pluggy-0.4.0
rootdir: /home/they4kman/.virtualenvs/tmp-26171665bd77f5/src, inifile:
collected 1 item                                                                

test_stuff.py Python 3.6.2 (default, Jul 20 2017, 08:43:29) 
Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
IPython 6.1.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: request.getfixturevalue('tmpdir_factory')
Out[1]: <_pytest.tmpdir.TempdirFactory at 0x7f71a7d501d0>

IPython must be installed, of course ;)