pytest-xdist 1.19.1

Speed up test runs by sending tests to multiple CPUs

To send tests to multiple CPUs, type:

py.test -n NUM

Especially for longer running tests or tests requiring a lot of IO this can lead to considerable speed ups. This option can also be set to auto for automatic detection of the number of CPUs.

If a test crashes the interpreter, pytest-xdist will automatically restart that slave and report the failure as usual. You can use the --max-slave-restart option to limit the number of slaves that can be restarted, or disable restarting altogether using --max-slave-restart=0.

Running tests in a Python subprocess

To instantiate a python2.5 sub process and send tests to it, you may type:

py.test -d --tx popen//python=python2.5

This will start a subprocess which is run with the “python2.5” Python interpreter, found in your system binary lookup path.

If you prefix the –tx option value like this:

--tx 3*popen//python=python2.5

then three subprocesses would be created and tests will be load-balanced across these three processes.

Running tests in a boxed subprocess

If you have tests involving C or C++ libraries you might have to deal with tests crashing the process. For this case you may use the boxing options:

py.test --boxed

which will run each test in a subprocess and will report if a test crashed the process. You can also combine this option with running multiple processes to speed up the test run and use your CPU cores:

py.test -n3 --boxed

this would run 3 testing subprocesses in parallel which each create new boxed subprocesses for each test.

Sending tests to remote SSH accounts

Suppose you have a package mypkg which contains some tests that you can successfully run locally. And you have a ssh-reachable machine myhost. Then you can ad-hoc distribute your tests by typing:

py.test -d --tx ssh=myhostpopen --rsyncdir mypkg mypkg

This will synchronize your mypkg package directory to an remote ssh account and then locally collect tests and send them to remote places for execution.

You can specify multiple --rsyncdir directories to be sent to the remote side.

You can specify multiple --rsyncignore glob patterns to be ignored when file are sent to the remote side. There are also internal ignores: .*, *.pyc, *.pyo, *~ Those you cannot override using rsyncignore command-line or ini-file option(s).

Sending tests to remote Socket Servers

Download the single-module socketserver.py Python program and run it like this:

python socketserver.py

It will tell you that it starts listening on the default port. You can now on your home machine specify this new socket host with something like this:

py.test -d --tx socket=192.168.1.102:8888 --rsyncdir mypkg mypkg

Running tests on many platforms at once

The basic command to run tests on multiple platforms is:

py.test --dist=each --tx=spec1 --tx=spec2

If you specify a windows host, an OSX host and a Linux environment this command will send each tests to all platforms - and report back failures from all platforms at once. The specifications strings use the xspec syntax.

Identifying the worker process during a test

New in version 1.15.

If you need to determine the identity of a worker process in a test or fixture, you may use the worker_id fixture to do so:

@pytest.fixture()
def user_account(worker_id):
    """ use a different account in each xdist worker """
    return "account_%s" % worker_id

When xdist is disabled (running with -n0 for example), then worker_id will return "master".

Additionally, worker processes have the following environment variables defined:

• PYTEST_XDIST_WORKER: the name of the worker, e.g., "gw2".

• PYTEST_XDIST_WORKER_COUNT: the total number of workers in this session, e.g., "4" when -n 4 is given in the command-line.

The information about the worker_id in a test is stored in the TestReport as well, under worker_id attribute.

Specifying test exec environments in an ini file

pytest (since version 2.0) supports ini-style cofiguration. You can for example make running with three subprocesses your default like this:

[pytest]
addopts = -n3

You can also add default environments like this:

[pytest]
addopts = --tx ssh=myhost//python=python2.5 --tx ssh=myhost//python=python2.6

and then just type:

py.test --dist=each

to run tests in each of the environments.

Sending groups of related tests to the same worker

New in version 1.19.

You can send groups of related tests to the same worker by using the --dist=loadscope option. Tests will be grouped by module for test functions and by class for test methods.

For example, consider this two test files:

# content of test_container.py
import pytest

def test_container_startup():
    pass

def test_container_logging():
    pass

@pytest.mark.parametrize('methods', ['ssh', 'http'])
def test_container_communication(methods):
    pass

# content of test_io.py
class TestHDF:

    def test_listing(self):
        pass

    def test_search(self):
        pass


class TestXML:

    def test_listing(self):
        pass

    def test_search(self):
        pass

By executing pytest -v --dist=loadscope -n4 you might get this output (sorted by worker for readability):

============================= test session starts =============================
<skip header>
gw0 [8] / gw1 [8] / gw2 [8] / gw3 [8]
scheduling tests via LoadScopeScheduling

[gw0] PASSED test_container.py::test_container_communication[http]
[gw0] PASSED test_container.py::test_container_communication[ssh]
[gw0] PASSED test_container.py::test_container_logging
[gw0] PASSED test_container.py::test_container_startup
[gw1] PASSED test_io.py::TestHDF::test_listing
[gw1] PASSED test_io.py::TestHDF::test_search
[gw2] PASSED test_io.py::TestXML::test_listing
[gw2] PASSED test_io.py::TestXML::test_search

========================== 8 passed in 0.56 seconds ===========================

As you can see, all test functions from test_container.py executed on the same worker gw0, while the test methods from classes TestHDF and TestXML executed in workers gw1 and gw2 respectively.

Currently the groupings can’t be customized, with grouping by class takes priority over grouping by module.

Specifying “rsync” dirs in an ini-file

In a tox.ini or setup.cfg file in your root project directory you may specify directories to include or to exclude in synchronisation:

[pytest]
rsyncdirs = . mypkg helperpkg
rsyncignore = .hg

These directory specifications are relative to the directory where the configuration file was found.