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Doctest vs unittest2 comparison of testing frameworks
What are the differences between Doctest and unittest2?

Doctest

https://docs.Python.org/2/library/doctest.html

unittest2

https://pypi.org/project/unittest2/
Programming language

Python

Python

Category

Unit Testing

Unit Testing

General info

Doctest is an inbuilt test framework for Python

Doctest is a test framework that comes prepackaged with Python. It is a simple library with a functionality that makes it possible to search for pieces of text that look like interactive Python sessions and executes these sessions to see if they work exactly as shown.

Unittest2 is a newer version on the inbuilt unit testing framework unittest

To use o use unittest2 instead of unittest, simply replace 'import unittest' with 'import unittest2'. It has many new features such as: - addCleanups for better resource management; -many new assert methods; - assertRaises as context manager, with access to the exception afterwards; - test discovery and new command line options (including failfast and better handling of ctrl-C during test runs); - class and module level fixtures: setUpClass, tearDownClass, setUpModule, tearDownModule; -test skipping and expected failures and many more improvements on the API and bug fixes
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

Yes

unittest2 is a newer version of unittest which is an xUnit style framework for Python.
Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

Front-end functionality and behaviour can be tested by unittest2. function by function
Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

We can write tests with unittest2 to test each function for server-side behaviour
Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

No

Lacks fixture management which can make writing tests harder

Yes

By use of the 'setUp()' function which is called to prepare the test fixture
Group fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data for a group of tests (group-fixtures). This ensures specific environment for a given group of tests.

No

Lacks fixture management

Yes

unittest2 allows you to group your initialization code buy use of the 'setUp()' function and clean up code with a 'tearDown()' function
Generators
Supports data generators for tests. Data generators generate input data for test. The test is then run for each input data produced in this way.

N/A

Yes

unittest2 contains generator methods in the module 'unittest.TestCase'
Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

MIT License

MIT License

Mocks
Mocks are objects that simulate the behavior of real objects. Using mocks allows testing some part of the code in isolation (with other parts mocked when needed)

A good external library for using Mocks with Doctest is minimocks

Yes

Mocks are available from the library unittest.mock which allows you to replace parts of your system under test with mock objects
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

One can group tests

Yes

One can build suites either manually or use test discovery to build the suite automatically by scanning a directory
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework