[BUG] - Cryptic error with pytest when you don't call pytest with the settings variable

[mrchrisadams]

Describe the bug

You can run the tests in this project by just calling pytest.

When you do, you see cryptic error that isn't very easy to debug.

ImportError: No module named 'path'

If you run pytest and you are explicit about using the testing settings with pytest --ds=greenweb.settings.testing then you'll see the culprit.

In this case the error was as follows:

>   from apps.greencheck.importers.amazon_importer import AmazonImporter
E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'apps.greencheck.importers.amazon_importer'

apps/greencheck/management/commands/update_networks_in_db_amazon.py:1: ModuleNotFoundError

How to get these tests passing properly

Rather than remembering to pass the correct params to pytest, you can also run make test instead.

make test

Under the hood, this will call

pytest -s --create-db --ds=greenweb.settings.testing

Explained in more detail, this command runs:

• a) makes sure we have a fresh database with create-db
• b) Makes sure we skip capturing output so we can drop into an interactive debugging session with -s
• c) uses the settings as outlined in the django settings file at greenweb.settings.testing, with the flag --ds=greenweb.settings.testing.

Fixing this

It might make sense to get pytest to throw an exception when it's run with the development or production settings, to catch this in future.

I think you can either do that, or make sure that the pytest.ini file is honoured, ahead of any set environment variables:

If you want to use the highest precedence in the configuration file, you can use addopts = --ds=yourtestsettings.