[FIXED] Running pytest test functions inside a jupyter notebook

Issue

I'm working on a presentation about python testing options, and one of the technologies I want to demo is pytest. I'm planning to do the presentation from an jupyter/ipython notebook. Ideally I'd like to be able to define a test function in a cell and then use pytest to run just that function; that way I can demonstrate individual features of pytest, etc.

Is there an existing way to do this? None of the interactive features I saw in the pytest api seem to fit the bill, but I'm certainly no pytest expert. I'd be happy to write a plugin to do it, so any advice on the best approach in that direction would be great.

I did see pytest-ipynb, but it does not seem to do what I need. If that assessment is wrong, advice on how to use that would be great, too.

Solution

I created ipython_pytest for this purpose and used it in my PyCon Helsinki 2016 presentation.

You would use the tool like this:

%%pytest

def test_my_stuff():
    assert 42 == 42

Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to make functions and classes defined in the notebook available to test functions in the test cell. I'd appreciate if someone comes up with a solution for that.

Answered By - akaihola