basic.txt

Basic usage
=============================================

a simple tox.ini / default environments
-----------------------------------------------

Put basic information about your project and the test environments you
want your project to run in into a ``tox.ini`` file that should
reside next to your ``setup.py`` file::

    # content of: tox.ini , put in same dir as setup.py
    [tox]
    envlist = py26,py27
    [testenv]
    deps=pytest # or 'nose' or ...
    commands=py.test  # or 'nosetests' or ...

To sdist-package, install and test your project, you can
now type at the command prompt::

    tox

This will sdist-package your current project, create two virtualenv_
Environments, install the sdist-package into the environments and run
the specified command in each of them.  With::

    tox -e py26

you can run restrict the test run to the python2.6 environment.

Available "default" test environments names are::

    py
    py24
    py25
    py26
    py27
    py30
    py31
    py32
    py33
    py34
    jython
    pypy
    pypy3

The environment ``py`` uses the version of Python used to invoke tox.

However, you can also create your own test environment names,
see some of the examples in :doc:`examples <../examples>`.

specifying a platform
-----------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 2.0

If you want to specify which platform(s) your test environment
runs on you can set a platform regular expression like this::

    platform = linux2|darwin

If the expression does not match against ``sys.platform``
the test environment will be skipped.

whitelisting non-virtualenv commands
-----------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.5

Sometimes you may want to use tools not contained in your
virtualenv such as ``make``, ``bash`` or others. To avoid
warnings you can use the ``whitelist_externals`` testenv
configuration::

    # content of tox.ini
    [testenv]
    whitelist_externals = make
                          /bin/bash


.. _virtualenv: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv

.. _multiindex:

depending on requirements.txt
-----------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.6.1

(experimental) If you have a ``requirements.txt`` file
you can add it to your ``deps`` variable like this::

    deps = -rrequirements.txt

All installation commands are executed using ``{toxinidir}``
(the directory where ``tox.ini`` resides) as the current
working directory.  Therefore, the underlying ``pip`` installation
will assume ``requirements.txt`` to exist at ``{toxinidir}/requirements.txt``.

using a different default PyPI url
-----------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 0.9

To install dependencies and packages from a different
default PyPI server you can type interactively::

    tox -i http://pypi.testrun.org

This causes tox to install dependencies and the sdist install step
to use the specificied url as the index server.

You can cause the same effect by this ``tox.ini`` content::

    [tox]
    indexserver =
        default = http://pypi.testrun.org

installing dependencies from multiple PyPI servers
---------------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 0.9

You can instrument tox to install dependencies from
different PyPI servers, example::

    [tox]
    indexserver =
        DEV = http://mypypiserver.org

    [testenv]
    deps =
        docutils        # comes from standard PyPI
        :DEV:mypackage  # will be installed from custom "DEV" pypi url

This configuration will install ``docutils`` from the default
Python PYPI server and will install the ``mypackage`` from
our ``DEV`` indexserver, and the respective ``http://mypypiserver.org``
url.  You can override config file settings from the command line
like this::

    tox -i DEV=http://pypi.python.org/simple  # changes :DEV: package URLs
    tox -i http://pypi.python.org/simple      # changes default

further customizing installation
---------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.6

By default tox uses `pip`_ to install packages, both the
package-under-test and any dependencies you specify in ``tox.ini``.
You can fully customize tox's install-command through the
testenv-specific :confval:`install_command=ARGV` setting.
For instance, to use ``easy_install`` instead of `pip`_::

    [testenv]
    install_command = easy_install {opts} {packages}

Or to use pip's ``--find-links`` and ``--no-index`` options to specify
an alternative source for your dependencies::

    [testenv]
    install_command = pip install --pre --find-links http://packages.example.com --no-index {opts} {packages}

.. _pip: http://pip-installer.org

forcing re-creation of virtual environments
-----------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 0.9

To force tox to recreate a (particular) virtual environment::

    tox --recreate -e py27

would trigger a complete reinstallation of the existing py27 environment
(or create it afresh if it doesn't exist).

passing down environment variables
-------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 2.0

By default tox will only pass the ``PATH`` environment variable (and on
windows ``SYSTEMROOT`` and ``PATHEXT``) from the tox invocation to the
test environments.  If you want to pass down additional environment
variables you can use the ``passenv`` option::

    [testenv]
    passenv = LANG

When your test commands execute they will execute with
the same LANG setting as the one with which tox was invoked.

setting environment variables
-------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.0

If you need to set an environment variable like ``PYTHONPATH`` you
can use the ``setenv`` directive::

    [testenv]
    setenv =
        PYTHONPATH = {toxinidir}/subdir

When your test commands execute they will execute with
a PYTHONPATH setting that will lead Python to also import
from the ``subdir`` below the directory where your ``tox.ini``
file resides.

special handling of PYTHONHASHSEED
-------------------------------------------

.. versionadded:: 1.6.2

By default, Tox sets PYTHONHASHSEED_ for test commands to a random integer
generated when ``tox`` is invoked.  This mimics Python's hash randomization
enabled by default starting `in Python 3.3`_.  To aid in reproducing test
failures, Tox displays the value of ``PYTHONHASHSEED`` in the test output.

You can tell Tox to use an explicit hash seed value via the ``--hashseed``
command-line option to ``tox``.  You can also override the hash seed value
per test environment in ``tox.ini`` as follows::

    [testenv]
    setenv =
        PYTHONHASHSEED = 100

If you wish to disable this feature, you can pass the command line option
``--hashseed=noset`` when ``tox`` is invoked. You can also disable it from the
``tox.ini`` by setting ``PYTHONHASHSEED = 0`` as described above.

.. _`in Python 3.3`: http://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.3.html#builtin-functions-and-types
.. _PYTHONHASHSEED: http://docs.python.org/using/cmdline.html#envvar-PYTHONHASHSEED

Integration with setuptools/distribute test commands
----------------------------------------------------

.. warning::

  Integrating tox into ``setup.py`` is strongly discouraged as 
  it breaks standard packaging approaches as used by many downstream distributions
  which expect ``setup.py test`` to test the current interpreter
  rather than setting up many virtualenvs.
  
  

Ignoring a command exit code
----------------------------

In some cases, you may want to ignore a command exit code. For example::

    [testenv:py27]
    commands = coverage erase
           {envbindir}/python setup.py develop
           coverage run -p setup.py test
           coverage combine
           - coverage html
           {envbindir}/flake8 loads

By using the ``-`` prefix, similar to a ``make`` recipe line, you can ignore
the exit code for that command.

Compressing dependency matrix
-----------------------------

If you have a large matrix of dependencies, python versions and/or environments you can
use :ref:`generative-envlist` and :ref:`conditional settings <factors>` to express that in a concise form::

    [tox]
    envlist = py{26,27,33}-django{15,16}-{sqlite,mysql}

    [testenv]
    deps =
        django15: Django>=1.5,<1.6
        django16: Django>=1.6,<1.7
        py33-mysql: PyMySQL     ; use if both py33 and mysql are in an env name
        py26,py27: urllib3      ; use if any of py26 or py27 are in an env name
        py{26,27}-sqlite: mock  ; mocking sqlite in python 2.x