Testing

The majority of Pyrseas’ capabilities are exercised and verified via unit tests written using pytest. The tests can be run from the command line by most users, e.g.,

py.test tests/dbobject/test_table.py
py.test tests/dbobject/test_trigger.py -k test_create_trigger
py.test tests/functional

The first python command above runs all tests related to tables, mapping, creating, dropping, etc. The second one executes a single test to generate SQL to create a trigger. The third runs all the functional tests. Please review the pytest documentation for further options.

Environment Variables

By default, the tests use a PostgreSQL database named pyrseas_testdb which is created if it doesn’t already exist. The tests are run as the logged in user, using the USER Unix/Linux environment variable (or USERNAME under Windows). They access PostgreSQL on the local host using the default port number (5432).

The following four environment variables can be used to change the defaults described above:

• PYRSEAS_TEST_DB
• PYRSEAS_TEST_USER
• PYRSEAS_TEST_HOST
• PYRSEAS_TEST_USER

Restrictions

Unless the test database exists and the user running the tests has access to it, the user role will need CREATEDB privilege.

Most tests do not require special privileges. However, tests that define dynamically loaded functions (e.g., test_create_c_lang_function() in test_function.py) require SUPERUSER privilege. Such tests will be skipped if the user lacks the privilege.

Most tests do not require installation of supporting PostgreSQL packages. However, tests that define dynamically loaded functions (see above) require that the contrib/spi module be installed.

On Windows, it is necessary to install Perl in order to run some of the tests. A suitable choice is Strawberry Perl which can be downloaded from http://strawberryperl.com/releases.html. However, the default installation is placed in C:\strawberry and can hold a single Perl version. Furthermore, PostgreSQL 8.4 and 9.0 are linked with Perl 5.10 whereas PostgreSQL 9.1 and 9.2 are linked with 5.14. It is recommended that Perl 5.10 be installed as this gives the fewest test failures. See this blog post for more details.

The COLLATION tests, run under PostgreSQL 9.1 and 9.2, require the fr_FR.utf8 locale (or French.France.1252 language on Windows) to be installed.

Testing Checklist

The following is a summary list of steps needed to test Pyrseas on a new machine. Refer to Development for details on how to accomplish a given installation task. “Package manager” refers to the platform’s package management system utility such as apt-get or yum. Installation from PyPI can be done with either pip or easy_install. Some operations require administrative or superuser privileges, at either the operating system or PostgreSQL level.

• Install Git using package manager or from http://git-scm.com/download (on Windows, prefer Git Bash)

• git clone git://github.com/perseas/Pyrseas.git

• Install Python 2.7 and 3.2, using package manager or from installers at http://www.python.org/download/.

• Install PostgreSQL 9.2, 9.1, 9.0 and 8.4, using package manager or binary installers at http://www.postgresql.org/download/

  Note

  On Linux, make sure you install the contrib and plperl packages, e.g., on Debian, postgresql-contrib-n.n and postgresql-plperl-n.n (where n.n is the PostgreSQL version number)

• Install Psycopg2, using package manager, or from PyPI (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/psycopg2) or http://initd.org/psycopg/download/.

  Note

  On Windows, it is best to first install the 2008 Microsoft Visual Express Studio from here. An alternative that may work is to use MinGW. See these blog posts for more details.

• Install PyYAML, using package manager, or from PyPI (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyYAML/) or http://pyyaml.org/download/pyyaml/.

• Install Tox, from PyPI (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tox)

  Note

  Psycopg2, PyYAML and Tox all have to be installed twice, i.e., once under Python 2.7 and another under 3.2.

• On Windows, install Perl (see discussion above under “Restrictions”). On Linux, usually Perl is already available.

• As postgres user, using psql or pgAdmin, create a test user, e.g., your name. The user running tests must have at a minimum createdb privilege, in order to create the test database. To run all the tests, the user also needs superuser privilege.

• Create a PostgreSQL password file, e.g., on Linux: ~/.pgpass, on Windows: %APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf.

• Create directories to hold tablespaces, e.g., /extra/pg/9.1/ts1 on Linux, C:\\extra\\pg\\9.1\\ts1 on Windows. The directories need to be owned by the postgres user. This may be tricky on older Windows versions, but the command cacls <dir> /E /G postgres:F should suffice. Using psql or pgAdmin, create tablespaces ts1 and ts2, e.g., CREATE TABLESPACE ts1 LOCATION '<directory>' (on Windows, you’ll have to use, e.g., E'C:\\dir\\ts1', to specify the directory).

  • On Windows, for PostgreSQL 9.2, the default installation is owned by the Network Service account, so the cacls command should be cacls <dir> /E /G networkservices:F.

  Note

  The creation of users/roles and tablespaces has to be repeated for each PostgreSQL version.

• Install the locale fr_FR.utf8 on Linux/Unix or the language French.France.1252 on Windows.

  • On Debian and derivatives, this can be done with the command:

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
    

  • On Windows, open the Control Panel, select Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options, then Regional and Language Options (or Add other languages), click on the Advanced tab in the dialog and then choose “French (France)” from the dropdown. Finally, click OK and respond to any subsequent prompts to install the locale, including rebooting the machine.

• Change to the Pyrseas source directory (created by the second step above).

  • Define the PYTHONPATH environment variable to the Pyrseas source directory, e.g., on Linux, export PYTHONPATH=$PWD, on Windows, set PYTHONPATH=%USERPROFILE%\somedir\Pyrseas.
  • Define the environment variables PG84_PORT, PG90_PORT, PG91_PORT and PG92_PORT to point to the corresponding PostgreSQL ports.

• Invoke tox. This will create two virtualenvs in a .tox subdirectory–one for Python 2.7 and another for 3.2, install Pyrseas and its prerequisites (Psycopg2 and PyYAML) into each virtualenv and run the unit tests for each combination of PostgreSQL and Python.