gantt/nova/testing

OpenStack Nova Testing Infrastructure

A note of clarification is in order, to help those who are new to testing in OpenStack nova:

• actual unit tests are created in the "tests" directory;
• the "testing" directory is used to house the infrastructure needed to support testing in OpenStack Nova.

This README file attempts to provide current and prospective contributors with everything they need to know in order to start creating unit tests and utilizing the convenience code provided in nova.testing.

Note: the content for the rest of this file will be added as the work items in the following blueprint are completed: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/consolidate-testing-infrastructure

Test Types: Unit vs. Functional vs. Integration

TBD

Writing Unit Tests

TBD

Using Fakes

TBD

test.TestCase

The TestCase class from nova.test (generally imported as test) will automatically manage self.stubs using the stubout module and self.mox using the mox module during the setUp step. They will automatically verify and clean up during the tearDown step.

If using test.TestCase, calling the super class setUp is required and calling the super class tearDown is required to be last if tearDown is overriden.

Writing Functional Tests

TBD

Writing Integration Tests

TBD

Tests and Exceptions

A properly written test asserts that particular behavior occurs. This can be a success condition or a failure condition, including an exception. When asserting that a particular exception is raised, the most specific exception possible should be used.

In particular, testing for Exception being raised is almost always a mistake since it will match (almost) every exception, even those unrelated to the exception intended to be tested.

This applies to catching exceptions manually with a try/except block, or using assertRaises().

Example:

self.assertRaises(exception.InstanceNotFound, db.instance_get_by_uuid,
                  elevated, instance_uuid)

If a stubbed function/method needs a generic exception for testing purposes, test.TestingException is available.

Example:

def stubbed_method(self):
    raise test.TestingException()
self.stubs.Set(cls, 'inner_method', stubbed_method)

obj = cls()
self.assertRaises(test.TestingException, obj.outer_method)