Testing ELDAM

ELDAM has a testing environment set up with pytest. Some tests use reference data for comparison. These data are stored in /tests/data/ for workbooks and in /conftest.py for Python objects. Objects defined in /conftest.py can be accessed within a test by simply calling it as argument of the test function. More information on this feature is available in pytest documentation.

Functions compare_workbook(), compare_processes(), compare_flows(), compare_input_parameters(), compare_calculated_parameters() can be used to spot differences between objects.

For simple functions, tests are written in Python doctests. More advanced unit or integration tests are written in /tests/.

Test processes

Tests are run on files and Python objects corresponding to test processes. Each object is referenced by a letter (a, b, c, …) so for example, elda_b.xlsm is the elda corresponding to the process B.

These processes are:

  • Process A: a simple process containing only information handled by SimaPro.

  • Process B: a version of process A containing also information handled by the elda only (quality and review data, data source, …).

  • Process C: a modified version of process A containing different flows and parameters.

elda_a and elda_b are the Elda spreadsheets corresponding to the respective processes. elda_r is an Elda containing process A as V1.0 and process B with metadata review info as V1.1. elda_c_minor and elda_c_major are Elda spreadsheets containing the two versions of elda_r plus a version of process C respectively as V1.3 and V2.0.

Updating test files

Testing can sometimes be a painful task if not automatised enough. For example, for a modification of the expected output (elda or csv), every test files must be updated accordingly. To make this operation easier, a test file update script has been developed. This script located in tests/data/update_test_files.py performs an update of every elda and csv test files and puts them in an /update folder. After verification of the files, they can be placed in the main test data folder, erasing the current files.

Warning

As this script uses Eldam’s code, an error in the code will be inherited by the generated files and may not raise an error upon testing (testing a wrong output against a wrong reference file). This is why a manual check should always be done after updating the files.