Does setUp method from unittest.TestCase know the current test case?

Question

Does the setUp method from the unittest.TestCase knows what is the next test case that will be executed? For example:

import unittest

class Tests(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        print "The next test will be: " + self.next_test_name()

    def test_01(self):
        pass

    def test_02(self):
        pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

Such code should produce upon execution:

The next test will be: test_01
The next test will be: test_02

Answer 1

No, unittest makes no guarantee about the order of test execution.

Moreover, you should structure your unit tests not to rely on any particular order. If they require some state setup from another test method then you no longer have, by definition, a unit test.

The current test method name which will be executed lives in self._testMethodName , but use it at your own risk (accessing _private attributes is subject to breakage without warning). Do not use this to customise setUp based on the particular test method, prefer to split tests requiring a different setup off into separate test classes.

Answer 2

class Tests(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        print "The next test will be: " + self.id()

    def test_01(self):
        pass

    def test_02(self):
        pass

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

Which will produce:

The next test will be: __main__.Tests.test_01
The next test will be: __main__.Tests.test_02