Pytest fails if run from inside a function

[kmkurn]

Hi,

I have a Flask application with directory structure like this:

project_dir/
|-- manage.py
|-- myapp/
|   |-- __init__.py
|-- tests/
    |-- test_myapp.py  # here I do import myapp and pytest

I am using Flask-Script plugin so I can do python manage.py test to run pytest. I have this in my manage.py file:

from flask.ext.script import Manager
import pytest

from myapp import app

manager = Manager(app)


@manager.command
def test():
    pytest.main()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    manager.run()

And when I run python manage.py test it fails with ERROR: file not found: test. Turns out pytest interprets the function name as a file name and it fails because the file does not exist.

Strangely, if I change the function slightly:

@manager.command
def test():
    pytest.main('-v')  # Run in verbose mode

It runs perfectly! I don't even have to install myapp in editable mode nor set the PYTHONPATH environment variable (which is weird since if I run py.test on project_dir it fails to import myapp). What's happening here?

I am using OS X 10.11, Python 3.4.3, and here's my pip freeze output:

appnope==0.1.0
beautifulsoup4==4.4.1
click==5.1
decorator==4.0.4
flake8==2.4.1
Flask==0.10.1
Flask-Script==2.0.5
gnureadline==6.3.3
gunicorn==19.3.0
ipython==4.0.0
ipython-genutils==0.1.0
itsdangerous==0.24
Jinja2==2.8
MarkupSafe==0.23
mccabe==0.3.1
path.py==8.1.1
pep8==1.5.7
pep8-naming==0.3.3
pexpect==3.3
pickleshare==0.5
py==1.4.30
pyflakes==0.8.1
pytest==2.8.0
python-dotenv==0.1.3
PyYAML==3.11
requests==2.7.0
simplegeneric==0.8.1
traitlets==4.0.0
Werkzeug==0.10.4
wheel==0.24.0

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

pytest.main will use sys.argv unless you pass a own list of options,

using pytest.main([]) should be sufficient for the simple case
you might want to pass additional arguments for test selection/pytest options

[kmkurn]

@RonnyPfannschmidt thanks for the explanation. now it makes sense.