Make parallel tests insensitive to user configuration

.circleci/config.yml

@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ jobs:
       - image: quay.io/pypa/manylinux1_i686
     steps:
       - checkout
+      - run:
+          name: Write configuration items to standard location to make sure they are ignored in parallel mode
+          command: |
+              mkdir -p $HOME/.astropy/config/
+              printf "unicode_output = True\nmax_width = 500" > $HOME/.astropy/config/astropy.cfg
       - run:
           name: Install dependencies for Python 3.5
           command: /opt/python/cp35-cp35m/bin/pip install numpy scipy pytest pytest-astropy pytest-xdist Cython jinja2

.travis.yml

@@ -190,6 +190,12 @@ before_install:
      # Check CC variable
     - echo $CC
 
+    # Write configuration items to standard location to make sure they are
+    # ignored (the tests will fail if not)
+    - mkdir -p $HOME/.astropy/config/
+    - printf "unicode_output = True\nmax_width = 500" > $HOME/.astropy/config/astropy.cfg
+
+
 install:
     - git clone git://github.com/astropy/ci-helpers.git
     - source ci-helpers/travis/setup_conda.sh

CHANGES.rst

@@ -836,6 +836,9 @@ Other Changes and Additions
   time squared (division already correctly resulted in a dimensionless
   ``Quantity``). [#8356]
 
+- Made running the tests insensitive to local user configuration when running
+  the tests in parallel mode or directly with pytest. [#8727]
+
 Installation
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
 

astropy/conftest.py

@@ -4,7 +4,9 @@
 (i.e.  those that would not necessarily be shared by affiliated packages
 making use of astropy's test runner).
 """
+import os
 import builtins
+import tempfile
 from importlib.util import find_spec
 
 import astropy
@@ -44,6 +46,20 @@ def pytest_configure(config):
         matplotlibrc_cache.update(matplotlib.rcParams)
         matplotlib.rcdefaults()
 
+    # Make sure we use temporary directories for the config and cache
+    # so that the tests are insensitive to local configuration. Note that this
+    # is also set in the test runner, but we need to also set it here for
+    # things to work properly in parallel mode
+
+    builtins._xdg_config_home_orig = os.environ.get('XDG_CONFIG_HOME')
+    builtins._xdg_cache_home_orig = os.environ.get('XDG_CACHE_HOME')
+
+    os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_config')
+    os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_cache')
+
+    os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+    os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+
 
 def pytest_unconfigure(config):
     builtins._pytest_running = False
@@ -52,6 +68,16 @@ def pytest_unconfigure(config):
         matplotlib.rcParams.update(matplotlibrc_cache)
         matplotlibrc_cache.clear()
 
+    if builtins._xdg_config_home_orig is None:
+        os.environ.pop('XDG_CONFIG_HOME')
+    else:
+        os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'] = builtins._xdg_config_home_orig
+
+    if builtins._xdg_cache_home_orig is None:
+        os.environ.pop('XDG_CACHE_HOME')
+    else:
+        os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'] = builtins._xdg_cache_home_orig
+
 
 PYTEST_HEADER_MODULES['Cython'] = 'cython'
 PYTEST_HEADER_MODULES['Scikit-image'] = 'skimage'

astropy/tests/runner.py

@@ -224,8 +224,13 @@ def run_tests(self, **kwargs):
         else:
             plugins = []
 
-        # override the config locations to not make a new directory nor use
-        # existing cache or config
+        # Override the config locations to not make a new directory nor use
+        # existing cache or config. Note that we need to do this here in
+        # addition to in conftest.py - for users running tests interactively
+        # in e.g. IPython, conftest.py would get read in too late, so we need
+        # to do it here - but at the same time the code here doesn't work when
+        # running tests in parallel mode because this uses subprocesses which
+        # don't know about the temporary config/cache.
         astropy_config = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_config')
         astropy_cache = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_cache')
 

conftest.py

@@ -1,5 +1,25 @@
 # Licensed under a 3-clause BSD style license - see LICENSE.rst
 
+# This file is the main file used when running tests with pytest directly,
+# in particular if running e.g. ``pytest docs/``.
+
+import os
+import tempfile
+
 pytest_plugins = [
     'astropy.tests.plugins.display',
 ]
+
+# Make sure we use temporary directories for the config and cache
+# so that the tests are insensitive to local configuration.
+
+os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_config')
+os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_cache')
+
+os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+
+# Note that we don't need to change the environment variables back or remove
+# them after testing, because they are only changed for the duration of the
+# Python process, and this configuration only matters if running pytest
+# directly, not from e.g. an IPython session.

docs/conftest.py

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+# Licensed under a 3-clause BSD style license - see LICENSE.rst
+
+# This file needs to be included here to make sure commands such
+# as ``python setup.py test ... -t docs/...`` works, since this
+# will ignore the conftest.py file at the root of the repository
+# and the one in astropy/conftest.py
+
+import os
+import tempfile
+
+# Make sure we use temporary directories for the config and cache
+# so that the tests are insensitive to local configuration.
+
+os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_config')
+os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'] = tempfile.mkdtemp('astropy_cache')
+
+os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CONFIG_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+os.mkdir(os.path.join(os.environ['XDG_CACHE_HOME'], 'astropy'))
+
+# Note that we don't need to change the environment variables back or remove
+# them after testing, because they are only changed for the duration of the
+# Python process, and this configuration only matters if running pytest
+# directly, not from e.g. an IPython session.