The Python Apprentice

Using the new fixtures

With our two fixtures in place, we now have a file that is created before each test method and which is deleted after each test method. This means that each test method is starting in a stable, known state. This is critical to making reproducible tests. Let's pass this filename to analyze_text() by modifying our existing test:

# text_analyzer.pyclass TextAnalysisTests(unittest.TestCase):    . . .    def test_function_runs(self):        "Basic smoke test: does the function run."        analyze_text(self.filename)

Remember that our setUp() stored the filename on self.filename. Since the self argument passed to the fixtures is the same instance as that passed to the test methods, our test can access the filename using that attribute.

Of course, ...