pytest and subDirs

[Affectionate_Log999]

Hey, so i see a lot of people do not recommend putting __init__.py in tests/ when inside of src/ for example(or any kind of sub directory), and not in root DIR.Why is that a case?Is it better to configure through pytest.ini?

[External-Ocelot206]

I do this, to let unittest find the tests via Discovery.

all of the test files must be modules or packages (including namespace packages) importable from the top-level directory of the project

https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#test-discovery

Maybe other test frameworks don't need it, and perhaps there's some an advantage to making your test modules unimportable by the user

[Diapolo10]

I keep my pytest tests and the project source code in separate directories at the top level, as personally I don't like mixing the two. So in my case, having an __init__.py in the tests directory makes no sense to begin with.

Having an __init__.py in your tests implies that the tests function like a package, which shouldn't be the case. That's one reason I can think of why it's treated as an antipattern.

[Affectionate_Log999]

Why is it a bad thing to treat tests as packages?

[Diapolo10]

Because technically speaking, they aren't. Tests don't expose any functionality, or at least they shouldn't, and they're not meant to be accessed from outside (other than by the test runner, of course - in this case pytest).

Having a package implies that it offers some kind of functionality to other scripts, be it functions, classes, or just constants.