How do I run a single test with Nose in Pylons - testing

Question

I have a Pylons 1.0 app with a bunch of tests in the test/functional directory.
I'm getting weird test results and I want to just run a single test.
The nose documentation says I should be able to pass in a test name at the command line but I get ImportErrors no matter what I do
For example:
nosetests -x -s sometestname
Gives:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/ben/.virtualenvs/tsq/lib/python2.6/site-packages/nose-0.11.4-py2.6.egg/nose/loader.py", line 371, in loadTestsFromName
module = resolve_name(addr.module)
File "/home/ben/.virtualenvs/tsq/lib/python2.6/site-packages/nose-0.11.4-py2.6.egg/nose/util.py", line 334, in resolve_name
module = __import__('.'.join(parts_copy))
ImportError: No module named sometestname
I get the same error for
nosetests -x -s appname.tests.functional.testcontroller
What is the correct syntax?

Answer 1

nosetests appname.tests.functional.test_controller should work, where the file is named test_controller.py.
To run a specific test class and method use a path of the form module.path:ClassNameInFile.method_name, that is, with a colon separating the module/file path and the objects within the file. module.path is the relative path to the file (e.g. tests/my_tests.py:ClassNameInFile.method_name).

Answer 2

For me using Nosetests 1.3.0 these variants are working (but make sure you have __init__.py in your tests folder):
nosetests [options] tests.ui_tests
nosetests [options] tests/ui_tests.py
nosetests [options] tests.ui_tests:TestUI.test_admin_page
Note that single colon between module name and class name.

Answer 3

I have to add the ".py" file extension, that is,
r'/path_to/my_file.py:' + r'test_func_xy'
Maybe this is because I don't have any classes in the file.
Without the .py, nose was complaining:
Can't find callable test_func_xy in file /path_to/my_file: file is not
a python module
And this although I have an __init__.py in the folder /path_to/.

Answer 4

I wrote this small script, based on the previous answers:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# Usage:
#
# ./noseTest <filename> <method_name>
#
# e.g.:
#
# ./noseTest test/MainTest.py mergeAll
#
# It is assumed that the file and the test class have the _same name_
# (e.g. the test class `MainTest` is defined in the file `MainTest.py`).
# If you don't follow this convention, this script won't work for you.
#
testFile="$1"
testMethod="$2"
testClass="$(basename "$testFile" .py)"
nosetests "$testFile:$testClass.test_$testMethod"

Answer 5

The following worked for me just well:
nosetests test_file.py:method_name
Note that my tests where not in a class. Test methods were in a single file.

Answer 6

For nosetests 1.3.7, you need to do:
nosetests --tests=tests.test_something.py,tests.test_something_else.py.