Testing Python teaches you how to use Unit Testing and Test-Driven Development to build clean, flexible Python programs that work in an Enterprise environment. Python's dynamic nature and vast range of external libraries make it a great choice for developers, but they also make it natural fit for Unit Testing and TDD.

Learn about:
* Unit testing and unit test tools
* Testable documentation
* Test-driven development
* Acceptance testing and acceptance testing tools
* Performance testing
* Looking after Lint
* Continuous testing
* Smoke testing

About the Author

David Sale (London, UK) is a software developer working for BSkyB, working predominantly with Python and Ruby. He writes about technology for Nettuts+.

Table of Contents:
Introduction CHAPTER 1 A History of Testing You Do Test, Don't You? Fundamentals and Best Practices Python Installation Linux Mac Windows Pip Virtualenv Source Control (SVN, Git) Interactive Development Environment (IDE) Summary CHAPTER 2 Writing Unit Tests What Is Unit Testing? What Should You Test? Writing Your First Unit Test Checking Values with the assertEquals Method Checking Exception Handling with assertRaises Following the PEP-8 Standard Unit Test Structure Additional Unit Test Examples Getting Clever with assertRaises Making Your Life Easier with setUp Useful Methods in Unit Testing Summary CHAPTER 3 Utilizing Unit Test Tools Using Python's Nose Installing Nose Using Nose's Best Features Running Specifi c Test Files Getting More Detail with Verbose Debugging Support with PDB Checking Your Coverage Coloring your tests with Rednose PyTest: An Alternative Test Runner Installing PyTest PyTest's Best Features Running Specifi c Tests Viewing Detail with Verbose and Summary Debugging with PDB Checking Your Coverage with PyTest Choosing Between Nose and PyTest Mock and Patch Tricky Situations Installing the Mock Library Mocking a Class and Method Response When Mock Won't Do, Patch! The Requests Library Patch in Action Advanced Mocking Summary CHAPTER 4 Writing Testable Documentation Writing Your First Doctest Th e Python Shell Adding Doctests to a Method Running Your Doctests Handling Error Cases Advanced Doctest Usage Improving Doctests with Nose Integration Summary Resources CHAPTER 5 Driving Your Development with Tests Agile Development Adopting the Agile Process Now Ethos of Test Driven Development Advantages of Test Driven Development Ping-Pong Programming Test Driving Your Problem Writing Your Failing Test Making Your Test Pass Driving More Features with Tests Wrapping Up the Task Summary Resources CHAPTER 6 Writing Acceptance Tests What Is Acceptance Testing? Anatomy of an Acceptance Test Using Gherkin Syntax Th e Magic Is in the Step File Goals of Acceptance Testing Implementing Developer and QA Collaboration Letting Behavior Drive Your Problem Writing Your Failing Acceptance Test Defining Your Steps Implementing Your Code Developing More of the Feature bank_apppy indexhtml Delivering the Finished Article Advanced Acceptance Test Techniques Scenario Outline Tables of Data in Scenarios Summary Resources CHAPTER 7 Utilizing Acceptance Test Tools Cucumber: The Acceptance Test Standard Lettuce in Detail Tagging Fail Fast Nosetest Integration Robot: An Alternative Test Framework Installing Robot Writing a Test Case Implementing Keywords Running Robot Tests Summary Resources CHAPTER 8 Maximizing Your Code's Performance Understanding the Importance of Performance Testing JMeter and Python Installation Configuring Your Test Plans Utilizing Your Test Plans Effectively Code Profiling with cProfile Run a cProfile Session Analyzing the cProfile Output Summary Resources CHAPTER 9 Looking After Your Lint Coming to Grips with Pylint Installing Pylint Using Pylint Understanding the Pylint Report The Module Block The Messages by Category Section The Messages Section The Code Evaluation Score The Raw Metrics Section The Statistics by Type Section Customizing Pylint's Output Telling Pylint to Ignore Errors Covering All Your Code with Unit Tests Installing Coverage Using Coverage Advanced Coverage Options Producing an HTML/XML Report Setting a Minimum Coverage Threshold Restricting Coverage to a Specific Package Ignoring Coverage Summary Resources CHAPTER 10 Automating Your Processes Build Paver Tasks Installing Paver Creating a Paver Task Executing Paver Tasks Defi ning a Default Build Setting Up Automated Builds Installing Jenkins Adding Coverage and PyLint Reports Generating a PyLint Report Generating a Coverage Report Making Your Build Status Highly Visible Summary Resources CHAPTER 11 Deploying Your Application Deploying Your Application to Production Creating a Deployable Artifact Defining the Paver Tasks Incorporating Packaging into the Build Enabling Archiving on Jenkins QA Environment Implementing Stage and Production Environments Implementing a Cloud Deployment Creating a Heroku Account Creating a Small Application Setting up Git for Heroku Deploying the Application to Heroku Smoke Testing a Deployed Application Example Application Stack Smoke Test Scenarios Implementing Smoke Tests Summary Resources CHAPTER 12 The Future of Testing Python Stub the Solution Making Deployment Natural Automating (Nearly) Everything Working in Public Collaborating on Step Definitions Final Thoughts Resources Index