monkeypatch-style chdir

[jtratner]

First - thank you so much for pytest - amazing tool and I love it!

The tmp_path and tmpdir fixtures are excellent, but can easily lead to changing current directory for all tests without realizing it (which can be confusing in error output).

It'd be useful to have a monkeypatch-style helper to change the directory built-in to pytest, equivalent to the chdir fixture below.

import pytest
import contextlib
from pathlib import Path
import os

ORIGINAL_DIR = Path.cwd()

@pytest.fixture
def chdir():
    original_path = Path.cwd()

    def do_chdir(path):
        curdir = Path.cwd()
        os.chdir(path)
    try:
        yield do_chdir
    finally:
        os.chdir(original_path)

def test_original_path():
    assert Path.cwd() == ORIGINAL_DIR


def test_something(tmpdir, chdir):
    assert Path.cwd() == ORIGINAL_DIR
    mypath = tmpdir.join("whatever")
    mypath.mkdir()
    chdir(mypath)
    assert Path.cwd() == mypath

The best-est implementation would make tmpdir.chdir() automatically restore working environment after test completed, but I could see that being complicated.

• a detailed description of the bug or suggestion
• output of pip list from the virtual environment you are using

pip list

Package            Version
------------------ -------
attrs              19.3.0 
importlib-metadata 1.6.0  
more-itertools     8.3.0  
packaging          20.3   
pip                18.1   
pluggy             0.13.1 
py                 1.8.1  
pyparsing          2.4.7  
pytest             5.4.2  
setuptools         40.6.2 
six                1.14.0 
wcwidth            0.1.9  
zipp               3.1.0  

• pytest and operating system versions - pytest 5.4.2 + OSX
• minimal example if possible

[jtratner]

(happy to contribute a pull request if this is an acceptable item - might need some help figuring out how to enforce test ordering tho :) )

[nicoddemus]

Hi @jtratner,

There's already monkeypatch.chdir which does exactly that. 😁

[jtratner]

oof 😅 slightly embarrassing haha (I swear I searched for it! haha) - lemme put up a PR to update the docs to call this out with tmpdir/tmp_path examples

[nicoddemus]

Hehehe no worries, thanks!