Python Unit Testing

This page provides technical guidance to developers writing unit tests for DM’s Python code base. See Software Unit Test Policy for an overview of LSST Stack testing.

Unicode

It is now commonplace for Unicode to be used in Python code and the LSST test cases should reflect this situation. In particular file paths, externally supplied strings and strings originating from third party software packages may well include code points outside of US-ASCII. LSST tests should ensure that these cases are handled by explicitly including strings that include code points outside of this range. For example,

• file paths should be generated that include spaces as well as international characters,
• accented characters should be included for name strings, and
• unit strings should include the µm if appropriate.