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

Nose

https://nose.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Doctest

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

Python

Python

Category

Unit Testing, unittest Extensions

Unit Testing

General info

Nose is a Python unit test framework

This is a Python unit test framework that intergrates well with doctests, unnittests, and 'no-boilerplate tests', that is tests written from scratch without a specific boilerplate.

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.
xUnit
Set of frameworks originating from SUnit (Smalltalk's testing framework). They share similar structure and functionality.

No

No

Client-side
Allows testing code execution on the client, such as a web browser

Yes

nose is a unit testing tool which is very similar to unittest. It is basically unittest with extensions therefore just like unittest is can test front-end components and behaviour

Server-side
Allows testing the bahovior of a server-side code

Yes

Nose can test back-end components and functionality as small units. One can write tests for each function that provides back-end functionality

Fixtures
Allows defining a fixed, specific states of data (fixtures) that are test-local. This ensures specific environment for a single test

Yes

nose supports fixtures at the package, module, class, and test case levels, so that initialization which can be expensive is done as infrequently as possible.

No

Lacks fixture management which can make writing tests harder
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.

Yes

Group fixtures are allowed with nose, where a multitest state can be defined.

No

Lacks fixture management
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.

Through use of third party libraries like test-generator and from the 'unittest.TestCase' library

N/A

Licence
Licence type governing the use and redistribution of the software

GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL) (GNU LGPL)

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)

Yes

The nose library extends the built-in Python unittest module therefore has access to unittest.mock

A good external library for using Mocks with Doctest is minimocks
Grouping
Allows organizing tests in groups

Yes

With nose it collects tests automatically and there’s no need to manually collect test cases into test suites.

Yes

One can group tests
Other
Other useful information about the testing framework