A test helper for invoking and testing command line interfaces (CLIs). This is adapted from the Click CliRunner but modified to work with non-Click scripts, such as those using argparse for parsing command line arguments.
python3 -m pip install clirunner
The source code is available on GitHub.
I write a lot of Python command line tools. I usually reach for Click to build the CLI but sometimes will use argparse or even just manual sys.argv parsing for simple scripts or where I do not want to introduce a dependency on Click. Click provides a very useful CliRunner for testing CLIs, but it only works with Click applications. This project is a derivative of Click's CliRunner that works with non-Click scripts. The API is the same as Click's CliRunner, so it should be easy to switch between the two if you later refactor to use Click.
Tested on macOS, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows using "*-latest" GitHub Workflow runners with Python 3.9 - 3.12.
Full documentation is available here.
CliRunner can invoke your CLI's main function as a command line script. The CliRunner.invoke() method runs the command line script in isolation and captures the output as both bytes and binary data.
The return value is a Result object, which has the captured output data, exit code, and optional exception attached:
"""Simple CLI """
import argparse
def hello():
"""Print Hello World"""
argp = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Print Hello World")
argp.add_argument("-n", "--name", help="Name to greet")
args = argp.parse_args()
print(f"Hello {args.name or 'World'}!")
if __name__ == "__main__":
hello()"""Test hello.py"""
from hello import hello
from clirunner import CliRunner
def test_hello_world():
runner = CliRunner()
result = runner.invoke(hello, ["--name", "Peter"])
assert result.exit_code == 0
assert result.output == "Hello Peter!\n"Note that result.output will contain the combined output of stdout and stderr. If you want to capture stdout and stderr separately, use result.stdout and result.stderr.
For basic command line tools with file system operations, the CliRunner.isolated_filesystem() method is useful for setting the current working directory to a new, empty folder.
"""Simple cat program for testing isolated file system"""
import argparse
def cat():
argp = argparse.ArgumentParser()
argp.add_argument("file", type=argparse.FileType("r"))
args = argp.parse_args()
print(args.file.read(), end="")
if __name__ == "__main__":
cat()"""Test cat.py example."""
from cat import cat
from clirunner import CliRunner
def test_cat():
runner = CliRunner()
with runner.isolated_filesystem():
with open("hello.txt", "w") as f:
f.write("Hello World!\n")
result = runner.invoke(cat, ["hello.txt"])
assert result.exit_code == 0
assert result.output == "Hello World!\n"Pass temp_dir to control where the temporary directory is created. The directory will not be removed by CliRunner in this case. This is useful to integrate with a framework like Pytest that manages temporary files.
def test_keep_dir(tmp_path):
runner = CliRunner()
with runner.isolated_filesystem(temp_dir=tmp_path) as td:
...The test wrapper can also be used to provide input data for the input stream (stdin). This is very useful for testing prompts, for instance:
"""Simple example for testing input streams"""
def prompt():
foo = input("Foo: ")
print(f"foo = {foo}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
prompt()"""Test prompt.py example"""
from prompt import prompt
from clirunner import CliRunner
def test_prompts():
runner = CliRunner()
result = runner.invoke(prompt, input="wau wau\n")
assert not result.exception
# note: unlike click.CliRunner, clirunner.CliRunner does not echo the input
assert "foo = wau wau\n" in result.outputNote that the input will not be echoed to the output stream. This is different from the behavior of the input() function, which does echo the input and from click's prompt() function, which also echo's the input when under test.
The CliRunner.invoke() method can also be used to set environment variables for the command line script. This is useful for testing command line tools that use environment variables for configuration.
"""Say hello to the world, shouting if desired."""
import os
def hello():
"""Say hello to the world, shouting if desired."""
if os.getenv("SHOUT") == "1":
print("HELLO WORLD!")
else:
print("Hello World!")
if __name__ == "__main__":
hello()"""Test hello2.py showing how to set environment variables for testing."""
from hello_env import hello
from clirunner import CliRunner
def test_hello():
"""Test hello2.py"""
runner = CliRunner()
result = runner.invoke(hello)
assert result.exit_code == 0
assert result.output == "Hello World!\n"
def test_hello_shouting():
"""Test hello2.py"""
runner = CliRunner()
result = runner.invoke(hello, env={"SHOUT": "1"})
assert result.exit_code == 0
assert result.output == "HELLO WORLD!\n"Normally the CliRunner.invoke() method will catch exceptions in the CLI under test. If an exception is raised, it will be available via the Result.exception property. This can be disabled by passing catch_exceptions=False to the CliRunner.invoke() method.
"""Simple script that raises an exception"""
def raise_exception():
"""Raises a ValueError exception"""
raise ValueError("Exception raised")
if __name__ == "__main__":
raise_exception()"""Test raise_exception.py"""
import pytest
from raise_exception import raise_exception
from clirunner import CliRunner
def test_exception_caught():
"""CliRunner normally catches exceptions"""
runner = CliRunner()
result = runner.invoke(raise_exception)
# exit code will not be 0 if exception is raised
assert result.exit_code != 0
assert isinstance(result.exception, ValueError)
def test_exception_not_caught():
"""CliRunner can be configured to not catch exceptions"""
runner = CliRunner()
with pytest.raises(ValueError):
runner.invoke(raise_exception, catch_exceptions=False)Do not use clirunner.CliRunner to test applications built with Click, Typer, or another Click derivative. Instead, use Click's built-in CliRunner or Typer's equivalent.
clirunner.CliRunner is designed for testing non-Click scripts such as those using argparse or manual sys.argv argument parsing. It has also been tested with pydantic-argparse, clipstick, and tyro.
CliRunner is a derivative work of Click's CliRunner, and so it is licensed under the same BSD 3-clause license as Click. See the LICENSE and LICENSE.Click files for details.