pytest Quick Start Guide

When to use fixtures, as opposed to simple functions

Sometimes, all you need is to construct a simple object for your tests, and arguably this can be done in a plain function, not necessarily needing to be implemented as a fixture. Suppose we have a WindowManager class, that does not receive any parameters:

class WindowManager:    ...

One way to use it in our tests would be to write a fixture:

@pytest.fixturedef manager():    return WindowManager()def test_windows_creation(manager):    window = manager.new_help_window("pipes_help.rst")    assert window.title() == "Pipe Setup Help"

Alternatively, you could argue that a fixture for such simple usage is overkill, and use a plain function instead:

def create_window_manager():    return WindowManager()def test_windows_creation(): ...