ipython_nose

This little IPython extension gives you the ability to discover and run tests using Nose in an IPython Notebook. To use it:

• make sure your IPython Notebook server can import ipython_nose.py (e.g. copy it to a directory in your PYTHONPATH, or modify PYTHONPATH before starting IPython Notebook)

• add a cell containing:

  %load_ext ipython_nose

  somewhere in your notebook

• write tests that conform to Nose conventions, e.g.:

  def test_arithmetic():
      assert 1+1 == 2

• add a cell consisting of:

  %nose

  to your notebook and run that cell. That will discover your test_* functions, run them, and report how many passed and how many failed, with stack traces for each failure.

Caveats

• There's no way to pass various Nose options, e.g. a custom regex for finding test functions, or selecting tests. Fixable.
• Renaming tests leaves behind the old name: you might only see N test methods in your notebook, but Nose will discover and run N+1 tests. Not sure how to fix this one.

• There are no links between the stack traces and the code: for example, a stack trace that looks like:

  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/nose/case.py", line 197, in runTest
      self.test(*self.arg)
    File "<ipython-input-10-a3ae96abafeb>", line 2, in test_myfunc
      assert myfunc() == 42
  AssertionError

  has the information you need to jump to the failing code, but does nothing with it. In particular, that synthetic filename (ipython-input-10-a3ae96abafeb) means that test_myfunc() is in cell #10 of your notebook. Go to that cell, then line 2, and you find the failing test. ipython_nose needs some UI magic to make this transparent.

TODO

• Display passing tests (like nose -v).

• Have a cell magic to only run test-like things in the current cell, e.g.:

  %%nose
  
  def test_just_this():
      assert True

Authors

• Taavi Burns <taavi at taaviburns dot ca>
• Greg Ward <greg at gerg dot ca>

Thanks to Fernando Perez and Greg Wilson for tips, ideas, etc.

Get the code

git clone https://github.com/taavi/ipython_nose.git

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2012, Taavi Burns, Greg Ward.

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Neither the name of the developers nor the names of contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

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