Unittest2 test discovery and real dotted-path named test selection for Django

runner.py

"""
An alternative Django ``TEST_RUNNER`` which uses unittest2 test discovery from
a base path specified in settings, rather than requiring all tests to be in
``tests`` module of an app.

If you just run ``./manage.py test``, it'll discover and run all tests
underneath the ``TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT`` setting (a path). If you run
``./manage.py test full.dotted.path.to.test_module``, it'll run the tests in
that module (you can also pass multiple modules).

And (new in this updated version), if you give it a single dotted path to a
package, and that package does not itself directly contain any tests, it'll do
test discovery in all sub-modules of that package.

This code doesn't modify the default unittest2 test discovery behavior, which 
only searches for tests in files named "test*.py".

"""
from django.conf import settings
from django.test import TestCase
from django.test.simple import DjangoTestSuiteRunner, reorder_suite
from django.utils.importlib import import_module
from django.utils.unittest.loader import defaultTestLoader



class DiscoveryRunner(DjangoTestSuiteRunner):
    """A test suite runner that uses unittest2 test discovery."""
    def build_suite(self, test_labels, extra_tests=None, **kwargs):
        suite = None
        discovery_root = settings.TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT

        if test_labels:
            suite = defaultTestLoader.loadTestsFromNames(test_labels)
            # if single named module has no tests, do discovery within it
            if not suite.countTestCases() and len(test_labels) == 1:
                suite = None
                discovery_root = import_module(test_labels[0]).__path__[0]

        if suite is None:
            suite = defaultTestLoader.discover(
                discovery_root,
                top_level_dir=settings.BASE_PATH,
                )

        if extra_tests:
            for test in extra_tests:
                suite.addTest(test)

        return reorder_suite(suite, (TestCase,))

settings.py

"""
You need the ``BASE_PATH`` and ``TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT`` settings in order for
this test runner to work.

``BASE_PATH`` should be the directory containing your top-level package(s); in
other words, the directory that should be on ``sys.path`` for your code to
import. This is the directory containing ``manage.py`` in the new Django 1.4
project layout.

``TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT`` should be the root directory to discover tests
within. You could make this the same as ``BASE_PATH`` if you want tests to be
discovered anywhere in your project. If you want tests to only be discovered
within, say, a top-level ``tests`` directory, you'd set ``TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT``
as shown below.

And you need to point the ``TEST_RUNNER`` setting to the ``DiscoveryRunner``
class above.

"""
import os.path

# This is correct for the Django 1.4-style project layout; for the old-style
# project layout with ``settings.py`` and ``manage.py`` in the same directory,
# you'd want to only call ``os.path.dirname`` once.
BASE_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))

# This would be if you put all your tests within a top-level "tests" package.
TEST_DISCOVERY_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_PATH, "tests")

# This assumes you place the above ``DiscoveryRunner`` in ``tests/runner.py``.
TEST_RUNNER = "tests.runner.DiscoveryRunner"

In case anyone is interested, I've packaged this up for general consumption (apologies @carljm, I needed it quick): http://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-discover-runner

I'm stuck on how to use this with Jenkins. If I want my Jenkins server to use this plugin, then I replace the "./manage.py jenkins" command that Jenkins was running with "./manage.py test". But now I'm no longer using the django-jenkins plugin command, I don't get the XML output that I think Jenkins needs in order to display the test results. Am I being dense?