Hey, I'm not sure how many of you follow GitHub Discussions in the pytest-dev repository, so I'm crossposting this (lightly edited) from there: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/discussions/8667
I've always wondered when pytest actually really was born - the first commit in the current pytest repository (5992a8ef21424d7571305a8d7e2a3431ee7e1e23) is from January 2007, and even that commit alone already tells a lot: This repository originally was from the py library[1] (later split off to pytest), and it originally was a SVN revision, migrated to Mercurial, and finally migrated to git. However, the commit says "create the new development trunk" and is already quite big: 435 files changed, 58640 insertions(+). So this week, I dug around in various other repositories and mailinglists to find out how it all started. As you might or might not know, pytest originally was born as part of PyPy[2], to make it easier to write tests for it. Here's what I found it with a bit of digging around: [1] https://pypi.org/project/py/ [2] https://www.pypy.org/ --- - Late 2002 / early 2003, PyPy was born: https://morepypy.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-first-15-years-of-pypy.html - Like that blog post mentioned, from very early on, there was a big focus on testing. There were various `testsupport` files on top of unittest.py, and as early as June 2003, Holger Krekel (@hpk42) refactored its test framework to clean things up (`pypy.tool.test`, but still on top of `unittest.py`, with nothing pytest-like yet, as far as I can tell): https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-dev/2003-June/000787.html - In December 2003, there was another iteration at improving their testing situation, by Stefan Schwarzer, called `pypy.tool.newtest`: https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy/-/commit/02752373e1b29d89c6bb0a97e5f940caa22bdd63 - However, it didn't seem to be around for long, as around June/July 2004, efforts started on a thing called `utest`, offering plain assertions. This seems like the start of something pytest-like, but unfortunately, I didn't actually find the test runner's code anywhere. The best I could find is one file, but that doesn't seem like a complete test runner at all. What I can see is that there were various efforts by Laura Creighton and Samuele Pedroni (@pedronis) at automatically converting existing tests to the new `utest` framework: https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy/-/commit/0735f9ed287ec20950a7dd0a16fc10810d4f6847 https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy/-/commits/branch/default?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=utest - Around the same time, for Europython 2004, @hpk42 started a project originally called "std", intended to be a "complementary standard library": http://web.archive.org/web/20041020215353/http://codespeak.net/svn/user/hpk/talks/std-talk.txt In that talk, he was already laying out the principles behind what later became pytest: > - current "batteries included" are very useful, but > * some of them are written in a pretty much java-like style, > especially the unittest-framework > * [...] > * the best API is one that doesn't exist > > [...] > > - a testing package should require as few boilerplate code as > possible and offer much flexibility > - it should provide premium quality tracebacks and debugging aid > > [...] > > - first of all ... forget about limited "assertXYZ APIs" > and use the real thing, e.g.: > > assert x == y > > - this works with plain python but you get unhelpful "assertion > failed" errors with no information > > - std.utest (magic!) actually reinterprets the assertion expression > and offers detailed information about underlying values - In September 2004, the `py-dev` mailinglist gets born, which is now pytest-dev, but thankfully with all the original archives still intact: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pytest-dev/ - Around September/October 2004, the `std` project was renamed to `py`: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-dev/2004-September/001565.html with that move, `std.utest` became `py.test`. This is also the first time I actually found the entire source code: https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy/-/commit/42cf50c412026028e20acd23d518bd92e623ac11 I was surprised how much of the API still seems around today: * `py.path.local`, which we're trying to get rid of (in favour of pathlib) some 16-17 years later * The idea of the collection tree, including `Collector`, `FSCollector`, `Directory`, `PyCollector`, `Module`, `Class` * Arguments like `-x` / `--exitfirst`, `-l` / `--showlocals`, `--fulltrace`, `--pdb`, `-S` / `--nocapture` (`-s` / `--capture=off` today), `--collectonly` (`--collect-only` today) - In the same month, the `py` library gets split off from `PyPy`: https://foss.heptapod.net/pypy/pypy/-/commit/6bdafe9203ad92eb259270b267189141c53bce33 - It seemed to get rather quiet for a while, and I can't really find much between October 2004 (removing `py` from PyPy) and January 2007 (first commit in the now-pytest repository). However, there were various discussions about features/ideas on the mailinglist, and a couple of releases every couple of months: https://pypi.org/project/py/0.8.0-alpha2/#history * March 2006: py 0.8.0-alpha2 * May 2007: py 0.9.0 * March 2008: py 0.9.1 (first release to be found in the pytest changelog: https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/blob/main/doc/en/changelog.rst#091) * August 2008: py 0.9.2 - In August 2009, py 1.0.0 was released, introducing a lot of fundamental features: https://holgerkrekel.net/2009/08/04/pylib-1-0-0-released-the-testing-with-python-innovations-continue/ * funcargs/fixtures * A plugin architecture which still looks very much the same today! http://web.archive.org/web/20090629032718/https://codespeak.net/py/dist/test/extend.html * Various default plugins, including monkeypatch http://web.archive.org/web/20091005181132/https://codespeak.net/py/dist/test/plugin/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20091012022829/http://codespeak.net/py/dist/test/plugin/monkeypatch.html - Even back there, the FAQ said: http://web.archive.org/web/20091005222413/http://codespeak.net/py/dist/faq.html > Clearly, [a second standard library] was ambitious and the naming > has maybe haunted the project rather than helping it. There may be a > project name change and possibly a split up into different projects > sometime. and that finally happened in November 2010, when pytest 2.0.0 was released as a package separate from `py` (but still called `py.test`): https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pytest-dev/2010-November/001687.html - In August 2016, pytest 3.0.0 was released, which adds `pytest` (rather than `py.test`) as the recommended command-line entry point: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/changelog.html#id1313 --- So, do I have an answer to my question "when was pytest started" now? Well, yes and no. It depends what point you really regard as the start of it all - I'd pick Europython 2004, i.e. around June/July 2004 - which means pytest is turning 17 soon, with many of its core concepts still being around! If anyone finds something I've missed (e.g. about what happened between mid-2004 and mid-2007), I'd be more than happy to hear about it! Florian -- m...@the-compiler.org | https://www.qutebrowser.org https://bruhin.software/ | https://github.com/sponsors/The-Compiler/ GPG: 916E B0C8 FD55 A072 | https://the-compiler.org/pubkey.asc I love long mails! | https://email.is-not-s.ms/
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