Astrotest

Capture functions arguments and results and create a unit test file for that combination to assist refactoring.

Why would I want to do that?

Imagine you have to refactor a large, undocumented (untested!) python code base. You'd probably identify the most important, slowest, or most error-prone One strategy is to write tests for the more significant functions and work from there.

This proof-of-concept utility captures this initial functionality by generating test cases during test executions of the code.

Why 'Astrotest'?

'Astroturfing' is a term meaning to create inauthentic comments or discussion to influence or overwhelm natural organic debate. Hence 'Astro-testing': it's not authentically TDD; it can create a large number of tests.

Overview

If the following function has the test_logging decorator:

@astro_test
def simplefn(a,b):
    return a+b

and if it's called with:

simplefn(a=1,b=2)

it will create a unit test:

def test_simplefn(self):
    self.assertEqual(simplefn(a=1, b=2), 3)

Detailed Example:

create a 'generate_tests.py' file such as:

from astrotest.astrotest import astro_test

@astro_test
def simplefn(a=1,b=2):
  return 'fixed output'

@astro_test
def simplefntwo(a=1, b=2, v=4):
  return a + b + v

# now call the functions, to create unittests
print simplefn(a=2, b=3)
print simplefn(a=2, b=4)
print simplefntwo(a=2, b=4)
print simplefntwo()
print simplefntwo(a=2)
print simplefntwo(a=3)

executing this, creates a 'unittests.py' file, which will have the following auto-generated contents:

import unittest
from astrotest.demo import *

class SimpleTest(unittest.TestCase):

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 'fixed', 'fn': 'simplefn', 'kwargs': {'a': 2, 'b': 3}}
def test_simplefn_4a2010(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefn(*(), **{'a': 2, 'b': 3}), 'fixed')

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 'fixed', 'fn': 'simplefn', 'kwargs': {'a': 2, 'b': 4}}
def test_simplefn_1ba07a(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefn(*(), **{'a': 2, 'b': 4}), 'fixed')

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 10, 'fn': 'simplefntwo', 'kwargs': {'a': 2, 'b': 4}}
def test_simplefntwo_37813d(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefntwo(*(), **{'a': 2, 'b': 4}), 10)

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 7, 'fn': 'simplefntwo', 'kwargs': {}}
def test_simplefntwo_21317a(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefntwo(*(), **{}), 7)

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 8, 'fn': 'simplefntwo', 'kwargs': {'a': 2}}
def test_simplefntwo_a8ad0a(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefntwo(*(), **{'a': 2}), 8)

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 9, 'fn': 'simplefntwo', 'kwargs': {'a': 3}}
def test_simplefntwo_1bce4b(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefntwo(*(), **{'a': 3}), 9)

# testcase:{'args': (2,), 'result': 2, 'fn': 'simplefn', 'kwargs': {}}
def test_simplefn_97dc25(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefn(*(2,), **{}), 2)

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 3, 'fn': 'simplefn', 'kwargs': {'a': 3}}
def test_simplefn_539aeb(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefn(*(), **{'a': 3}), 3)

# testcase:{'args': (), 'result': 1, 'fn': 'simplefn', 'kwargs': {}}
def test_simplefn_8ceadf(self):
      self.assertEqual(simplefn(*(), **{}), 1)