You can use the tmpdir fixture which will provide a temporary directory unique to the test invocation, created in the base temporary directory.
tmpdir is a py.path.local object which offers os.path methods and more. Here is an example test usage:
# content of test_tmpdir.py
import os
def test_create_file(tmpdir):
p = tmpdir.mkdir("sub").join("hello.txt")
p.write("content")
assert p.read() == "content"
assert len(tmpdir.listdir()) == 1
assert 0
Running this would result in a passed test except for the last assert 0 line which we use to look at values:
$ py.test test_tmpdir.py
======= test session starts ========
platform linux -- Python 3.4.3, pytest-2.8.7, py-1.4.31, pluggy-0.3.1
rootdir: $REGENDOC_TMPDIR, inifile:
collected 1 items
test_tmpdir.py F
======= FAILURES ========
_______ test_create_file ________
tmpdir = local('PYTEST_TMPDIR/test_create_file0')
def test_create_file(tmpdir):
p = tmpdir.mkdir("sub").join("hello.txt")
p.write("content")
assert p.read() == "content"
assert len(tmpdir.listdir()) == 1
> assert 0
E assert 0
test_tmpdir.py:7: AssertionError
======= 1 failed in 0.12 seconds ========
New in version 2.8.
The tmpdir_factory is a session-scoped fixture which can be used to create arbitrary temporary directories from any other fixture or test.
For example, suppose your test suite needs a large image on disk, which is generated procedurally. Instead of computing the same image for each test that uses it into its own tmpdir, you can generate it once per-session to save time:
# contents of conftest.py
import pytest
@pytest.fixture(scope='session')
def image_file(tmpdir_factory):
img = compute_expensive_image()
fn = tmpdir_factory.mktemp('data').join('img.png')
img.save(str(fn))
return fn
# contents of test_image.py
def test_histogram(image_file):
img = load_image(image_file)
# compute and test histogram
tmpdir_factory instances have the following methods:
Temporary directories are by default created as sub-directories of the system temporary directory. The base name will be pytest-NUM where NUM will be incremented with each test run. Moreover, entries older than 3 temporary directories will be removed.
You can override the default temporary directory setting like this:
py.test --basetemp=mydir
When distributing tests on the local machine, pytest takes care to configure a basetemp directory for the sub processes such that all temporary data lands below a single per-test run basetemp directory.