:orphan:

.. _`pytest helpers`:

Pytest API and builtin fixtures
================================================


Most of the information of this page has been moved over to :ref:`reference`.

For information on plugin hooks and objects, see :ref:`plugins`.

For information on the ``pytest.mark`` mechanism, see :ref:`mark`.

For information about fixtures, see :ref:`fixtures`. To see a complete list of available fixtures (add ``-v`` to also see fixtures with leading ``_``), type ::

    $ pytest -q --fixtures
    cache
        Return a cache object that can persist state between testing sessions.

        cache.get(key, default)
        cache.set(key, value)

        Keys must be a ``/`` separated value, where the first part is usually the
        name of your plugin or application to avoid clashes with other cache users.

        Values can be any object handled by the json stdlib module.
    capsys
        Enable capturing of writes to ``sys.stdout`` and ``sys.stderr`` and make
        captured output available via ``capsys.readouterr()`` method calls
        which return a ``(out, err)`` namedtuple.  ``out`` and ``err`` will be ``text``
        objects.
    capsysbinary
        Enable capturing of writes to ``sys.stdout`` and ``sys.stderr`` and make
        captured output available via ``capsys.readouterr()`` method calls
        which return a ``(out, err)`` tuple.  ``out`` and ``err`` will be ``bytes``
        objects.
    capfd
        Enable capturing of writes to file descriptors ``1`` and ``2`` and make
        captured output available via ``capfd.readouterr()`` method calls
        which return a ``(out, err)`` tuple.  ``out`` and ``err`` will be ``text``
        objects.
    capfdbinary
        Enable capturing of write to file descriptors 1 and 2 and make
        captured output available via ``capfdbinary.readouterr`` method calls
        which return a ``(out, err)`` tuple.  ``out`` and ``err`` will be
        ``bytes`` objects.
    doctest_namespace
        Fixture that returns a :py:class:`dict` that will be injected into the namespace of doctests.
    pytestconfig
        Session-scoped fixture that returns the :class:`_pytest.config.Config` object.

        Example::

            def test_foo(pytestconfig):
                if pytestconfig.getoption("verbose"):
                    ...
    record_property
        Add an extra properties the calling test.
        User properties become part of the test report and are available to the
        configured reporters, like JUnit XML.
        The fixture is callable with ``(name, value)``, with value being automatically
        xml-encoded.

        Example::

            def test_function(record_property):
                record_property("example_key", 1)
    record_xml_property
        (Deprecated) use record_property.
    record_xml_attribute
        Add extra xml attributes to the tag for the calling test.
        The fixture is callable with ``(name, value)``, with value being
        automatically xml-encoded
    caplog
        Access and control log capturing.

        Captured logs are available through the following methods::

        * caplog.text            -> string containing formatted log output
        * caplog.records         -> list of logging.LogRecord instances
        * caplog.record_tuples   -> list of (logger_name, level, message) tuples
        * caplog.clear()         -> clear captured records and formatted log output string
    monkeypatch
        The returned ``monkeypatch`` fixture provides these
        helper methods to modify objects, dictionaries or os.environ::

            monkeypatch.setattr(obj, name, value, raising=True)
            monkeypatch.delattr(obj, name, raising=True)
            monkeypatch.setitem(mapping, name, value)
            monkeypatch.delitem(obj, name, raising=True)
            monkeypatch.setenv(name, value, prepend=False)
            monkeypatch.delenv(name, raising=True)
            monkeypatch.syspath_prepend(path)
            monkeypatch.chdir(path)

        All modifications will be undone after the requesting
        test function or fixture has finished. The ``raising``
        parameter determines if a KeyError or AttributeError
        will be raised if the set/deletion operation has no target.
    recwarn
        Return a :class:`WarningsRecorder` instance that records all warnings emitted by test functions.

        See http://docs.python.org/library/warnings.html for information
        on warning categories.
    tmpdir_factory
        Return a TempdirFactory instance for the test session.
    tmpdir
        Return a temporary directory path object
        which is unique to each test function invocation,
        created as a sub directory of the base temporary
        directory.  The returned object is a `py.path.local`_
        path object.

        .. _`py.path.local`: https://py.readthedocs.io/en/latest/path.html

    no tests ran in 0.12 seconds

You can also interactively ask for help, e.g. by typing on the Python interactive prompt something like::

    import pytest
    help(pytest)