Is there a way to specify which pytest tests to run from a file?

Question

Is there a way to select pytest tests to run from a file? For example, a file foo.txt containing a list of tests to be executed:

tests_directory/foo.py::test_001 tests_directory/bar.py::test_some_other_test 

Or, is there a way to select multiple tests, having no common pattern in test name, from different directories with pytest?

pytest -k <pattern> allows a single pattern.

One option is to have a pytest.mark against each test, but my requirement is to run different combination of tests from different files.

Is there a way to specify multiple patterns and a test file name for each pattern?

Or

Is there a way to specify the exact test paths in a file and feed that file as an input to pytest?

Or

Is there a hook function that can be utilized for this purpose?

Answer 1

You can use -k option to run test cases with different patterns:

py.test tests_directory/foo.py tests_directory/bar.py -k 'test_001 or test_some_other_test' 

This will run test cases with name test_001 and test_some_other_test deselecting the rest of the test cases.

Note: This will select any test case starting with test_001 or test_some_other_test. For example, if you have test case test_0012 it will also be selected.

Answer 2

Specifying tests / selecting tests

Pytest supports several ways to run and select tests from the command-line.

Run tests in a module

pytest test_mod.py

Run tests in a directory

pytest testing/

Run tests by keyword expressions

pytest -k "MyClass and not method"

This will run tests which contain names that match the given string expression, which can include Python operators that use filenames, class names and function names as variables. The example above will run TestMyClass.test_something but not TestMyClass.test_method_simple.

Run tests by node ids

Each collected test is assigned a unique nodeid which consist of the module filename followed by specifiers like class names, function names and parameters from parametrization, separated by :: characters.

To run a specific test within a module:

pytest test_mod.py::test_func

Another example specifying a test method in the command line:

pytest test_mod.py::TestClass::test_method

Run tests by marker expressions

pytest -m slow

Will run all tests which are decorated with the @pytest.mark.slow decorator.

For more information see marks.

Run tests from packages

pytest --pyargs pkg.testing

This will import pkg.testing and use its filesystem location to find and run tests from.

Source: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/usage.html#specifying-tests-selecting-tests