Specifying test .py files relative to pytest.ini file.

[julian-smith-artifex-com]

I'm using norecursedirs to exclude various subdirectories when pytest searches for test files.

However there may be new subdirectories to exclude in future, so i'd prefer to anchor python_files at the root of my project (or at the directory containing pytest.ini) so that it will always work without me having to add new exclusions.

Is this possible?

For example a syntax like python_files = ^tests/test_*.py would be really helpful.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[BTW i've tried testspaths and testpaths, but they don't seem to avoid the need for norecursedirs.

[portyu9]

Hi @julian-smith-artifex-com

Use testpaths to specify the directory and python_files to specify the filename pattern:

[pytest]
testpaths = tests
python_files = test_*.py

python_files is a glob-style filename pattern, not a regular expression and not a path expression.

So this:

python_files = ^tests/test_*.py

doesn't mean "anchor this pattern to the tests directory". The ^ has no regex-anchor meaning there.

The responsibilities are separate:

testpaths = tests

tells pytest where to start its default collection when you run:

pytest

and:

python_files = test_*.py

tells it which Python filenames inside the collection tree should be considered test modules.

You can specify multiple directories too:

[pytest]
testpaths =
    tests
    integration_tests

python_files = test_*.py

One important limitation: testpaths controls pytest's default collection roots. If somebody explicitly passes another path:

pytest some_other_directory/

pytest can collect from the explicitly requested location instead.

If you need to prevent recursion into particular directories as well, use norecursedirs.

Also note the option is named:

testpaths

not testspaths.

Please mark this answer as accepted if it helped, thank you.