python - Run setUp only once for a set of automated tests

Question

My Python version is 2.6.

I would like to execute the test setUp method only once since I do things there which are needed for all tests.

My idea was to create a boolean variable which will be set to 'true' after the first execution and then disable more than one call to the setup method.

class mySelTest(unittest.TestCase):
? ? setup_done = False

? ? def setUp(self):
? ? ? ? print str(self.setup_done)
? ? ? ? ? ??
? ? ? ? if self.setup_done:
? ? ? ? ? ? return
? ? ? ? self.setup_done = True
? ? ? ? print str(self.setup_done)

The output:

False

True

--- Test 1 ---

False

True

--- Test 2 ---

why is this not working? Did I miss anything?

Answer 1

You can use setUpClass to define methods that only run once per testsuite.