abstract test case using python unittest

There's a very simple way that everyone has missed so far. And unlike several of the answers, it works with all test drivers, rather than failing the minute you switch between them.

Simply use inheritence as usual, then add:

del AbstractTestCase

at the end of the module.

I didn't quite understand what do you plan to do -- the rule of thumb is "not to be smart with tests" - just have them there, plain written.

But to achieve what you want, if you inherit from unittest.TestCase, whenever you call unittest.main() your "abstract" class will be executed - I think this is the situation you want to avoid.

Just do this: Create your "abstract" class inheriting from "object", not from TestCase. And for the actual "concrete" implementations, just use multiple inheritance: inherit from both unittest.TestCase and from your abstract class.

import unittest

class Abstract(object):
    def test_a(self):
        print "Running for class", self.__class__

class Test(Abstract, unittest.TestCase):
    pass

unittest.main()

update: reversed the inheritance order - Abstract first so that its defintions are not overriden by TestCase defaults, as well pointed in the comments bellow.