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Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output.

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Date 2013-09-22 11:33 +1000
Subject Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output.
From Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Message-ID <mailman.237.1379813607.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 2:25 AM, Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> wrote:
> The difference is that in that case you want to check whether the result is correct or not, because you expect a certain result.
>
> In my case, I don't know what the output is, nor care for the purpose of the tutorial. What I care is being sure that the command in the tutorial is correct, and up to date with the code.

I'd call that a smoke-test, rather than something a test
harness/engine should be doing normally. All you do is see if the
program crashes. This can be extremely useful (I smoke-test my scripts
as part of my one-key "deploy to testbox" script, saving me the
trouble of actually running anything - simple syntactic errors or
misspelled function/variable names (in languages where that's a
concept) get caught really early); but if you're using this for a
tutorial, you risk creating a breed of novice programmers who believe
their first priority is to stop the program crashing. Smoke testing is
a tool that should be used by the expert, NOT a sole check given to a
novice.

ChrisA

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Thread

Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-21 03:47 -0700
  Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-09-21 12:27 +0000
    Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-21 05:44 -0700
      Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-09-21 15:48 +0000
        Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-21 09:25 -0700
          Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-09-22 11:33 +1000
            Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-21 21:09 -0700
              Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-09-22 14:25 +1000
              Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-09-22 09:39 -0400
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-22 07:26 -0700
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-09-23 00:36 +0000
          Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-09-22 02:38 +0000
            Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-21 21:15 -0700
              Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-09-22 12:12 +0000
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-22 07:24 -0700
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-09-23 13:42 +0000
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-23 07:45 -0700
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-23 07:51 -0700
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2013-09-23 10:14 -0500
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-09-23 16:44 +0000
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2013-09-23 16:53 +0000
                Re: Sphinx Doctest: test the code without comparing the output. Luca Cerone <luca.cerone@gmail.com> - 2013-09-23 11:54 -0700

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