Pytest: New-style classes for python2.7

[nolar]

The problem:

Pytest uses old-style classes everywhere. E.g.,

class MarkGenerator:
    ………

class MarkDecorator:
    ………

This causes unexpected behaviour in some cases. For example, when trying to get an item from a mark, AttributeError is raised (as in the old-style classes) instead of TypeError (as in the new-style classes).

The old-style classes are long deprecated, and the modern libraries & young developers do not expect this weird behaviour in their code anymore. This causes errors when trying to integrate pytest with other libraries & frameworks. For instance, in Jinja template engine (pallets/jinja#631); but there may be other cases.

The solution:

It would be nice if all classes would be new-style classes, i.e. explicitly inheriting from object:

class MarkGenerator(object):
    ………

class MarkDecorator(object):
    ………

Possible problems:

This will probably break the compatibility with python < 2.7 (officially 2.6+ is declared for pytest).

Also, in python3, the no-braces syntax is a new normal (again), but causes the new-style classes with implicit inheritance from object. The 2.7's new-style syntax is supported.

So, explicit mentioning of (object) may be of use for python2.7 only. Hence, it should be discussed is it worth changing the code for this case.

Notes:

Python 2.7.10.
pytest==3.0.3

[The-Compiler]

Why would it break 2.6 compatibility?

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

we would mainly break behaiviour compatibility, i propose we wed this out while introducing attrs

[nicoddemus]

New style classes have been introduced a long time ago; I remember using new-style classes was the recommendation for all objects at the time when I started learning Python, and that was in Python 2.4. This document says new-style classes were introduced in 2.1, and object() was introduced in 2.2 and already mentions the object type and new-style classes.

New-style classes affect mainly very special use-cases (like __slots__ and __getattr__), and exceptions raised by special methods like you said:

Python 2.6.6 (r266:84297, Aug 24 2010, 18:46:32) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class Old: pass
...
>>> class New(object): pass
...
>>> Old()[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: Old instance has no attribute '__getitem__'
>>> New()[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'New' object does not support indexing

But I don't know currently how it would break compatibility with 2.6... @nolar do you have any exmaples or references on how changing that would break things in 2.6 but not in 2.7?

Having said that, I'm not opposed to the idea at all, it will make the behavior in Python 2 and 3 more consistent; I never worried about this before because the differences are very subtle and I didn't think they mattered on how pytest uses its objects.

If we decide to change this, it must be done in the features branch and mentioned on the CHANGELOG, of course.

[nicoddemus]

@RonnyPfannschmidt

we would mainly break behaiviour compatibility, i propose we wed this out while introducing attrs

I'm not sure we need to tie one change to the other. Changing to new-style classes is just a matter of a simple find/replace and checking if all tests pass. 😁

[nolar]

Sorry, that was my mistake. I've misunderstood the sentence "New-style classes has been integrated into Python 2.7 and old-style classes has been removed in Python 3" at https://www.python.org/doc/newstyle/.

If the new-style classes are there since 2.2, then backward compatibility will not be broken.

[nicoddemus]

@nolar would you like to contribute a PR?

[MichalTHEDUDE]

Hi Guys! Have one question about inheritance from object class.
I saw Issue #2179 and does it cover all classes?
Because I can spot that in pytest/_pytest/vendored_packages/pluggy.py::_TagTracer in row 170 (feature branch) there is class without inheritance from object class.

Should It be also changed? Or there is a 'special' logic behind this?

Thanks!

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

@MichalTHEDUDE we dont patch vendored code, a pr to pluggy is welcome tho

[MichalTHEDUDE]

Okay, so I can cover all of discrepancies.
But to be clear. Should I add (object) into those folders?

• doc/
• testing/

IMO in terms of doc/ should be as is. But what about classes in testing/ folder?

[goodboy]

@RonnyPfannschmidt @MichalTHEDUDE made that issue for you.
I don't see any reason this can't be done this week :)

[The-Compiler]

@MichalTHEDUDE IMHO, it makes sense to do it for all classes in docs and tests, except all TestFoo classes (because pytest only uses classes for grouping, so it really won't make any difference there).

[MichalTHEDUDE]

@tgoodlet so the same changes in pluggy? Coming right up!

@The-Compiler I will make it for everything. And about TestFoo IMO it will be better to also make those changes to be consistent with everything :).
Because in couple of months from now someone will ask, why TestFoo do not inherit from object class??

What do you think?

PS. I also don't see any reasons this can't be done this week ;).

[nicoddemus]

Because in couple of months from now someone will ask, why TestFoo do not inherit from object class??

Good point!

[nicoddemus]

Unfortunately we noticed that this might break user's expectations (#2398), so we are backing off this change for now until we can properly follow our deprecation policy in order to introduce this again.