PythonTutor / CodeLens does not allow "import test"

[dandrake]

This is the same as RunestoneInteractive/rs#1146 ; I'm not sure where this report belongs.

What Page were you on

https://runestone.academy/ns/books/published/thinkcspy/Functions/ProgramDevelopment.html

Describe the bug

The code there includes "import test" -- but the current version of PythonTutor it uses does not allow that import, so you can't use it / CodeLens.

A Screenshot is worth a thousand words

What is your username

github: dandrake
runestone: ddrake1

I have some sample code that uses unittest: RunestoneInteractive/rs#1146 (comment)

[dandrake]

As further reason to change this: "The test package is meant for internal use by Python only. It is documented for the benefit of the core developers of Python. Any use of this package outside of Python’s standard library is discouraged as code mentioned here can change or be removed without notice between releases of Python."...!

[bnmnetp]

That is not the version we use. The version of test in thinkcspy is one that I wrote more than 10 years ago to be a really simple demonstration. I've not had time to be an author in years, and so some examples like this have languished. But the standard unit test or the gui package of unit test has become standard practice in our books for motivating students to get it right as well as provding auto grading of coding problems.

[dandrake]

Ah, I didn't know it was a custom module -- that explains why it was so hard to search for details on the methods used there. 😄

The boilerplate with unittest is unpleasant for the purposes of these little code snippet examples, but it does have the advantage of being a good thing to learn and use.

Alternatively, the text might just have students write test functions using assert and so on:

def test1():
    result = myfunction(...)
    assert result == correct_output

def test2():
    result = myfunction(...different case...)
    assert result == correct_output2

def run_tests():
    test1()
    test2()
    print("All tests passed!")
    return True

...which is effectively a super simplified, roll-your-own version of a unittest TestCase and so on.

[bnmnetp]

Most of the time we make the unittests hidden. So the students don't see it. But we could have one example where they see all the boilerplate and then hide them after that.

But your approach of having them write some simple test functions is also reasonable. Maybe I should go back and review the text myself. I haven't actually read it in years.