Continuing in Python's unittest when an assertion fails

Another way to have non-fatal assertions is to capture the assertion exception and store the exceptions in a list. Then assert that that list is empty as part of the tearDown.

import unittest

class Car(object):
  def __init__(self, make, model):
    self.make = make
    self.model = make  # Copy and paste error: should be model.
    self.has_seats = True
    self.wheel_count = 3  # Typo: should be 4.

class CarTest(unittest.TestCase):
  def setUp(self):
    self.verificationErrors = []

  def tearDown(self):
    self.assertEqual([], self.verificationErrors)

  def test_init(self):
    make = "Ford"
    model = "Model T"
    car = Car(make=make, model=model)
    try: self.assertEqual(car.make, make)
    except AssertionError, e: self.verificationErrors.append(str(e))
    try: self.assertEqual(car.model, model)  # Failure!
    except AssertionError, e: self.verificationErrors.append(str(e))
    try: self.assertTrue(car.has_seats)
    except AssertionError, e: self.verificationErrors.append(str(e))
    try: self.assertEqual(car.wheel_count, 4)  # Failure!
    except AssertionError, e: self.verificationErrors.append(str(e))

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

One option is assert on all the values at once as a tuple.

For example:

class CarTest(unittest.TestCase):
  def test_init(self):
    make = "Ford"
    model = "Model T"
    car = Car(make=make, model=model)
    self.assertEqual(
            (car.make, car.model, car.has_seats, car.wheel_count),
            (make, model, True, 4))

The output from this tests would be:

======================================================================
FAIL: test_init (test.CarTest)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\temp\py_mult_assert\test.py", line 17, in test_init
    (make, model, True, 4))
AssertionError: Tuples differ: ('Ford', 'Ford', True, 3) != ('Ford', 'Model T', True, 4)

First differing element 1:
Ford
Model T

- ('Ford', 'Ford', True, 3)
?           ^ -          ^

+ ('Ford', 'Model T', True, 4)
?           ^  ++++         ^

This shows that both the model and the wheel count are incorrect.

What you'll probably want to do is derive unittest.TestCase since that's the class that throws when an assertion fails. You will have to re-architect your TestCase to not throw (maybe keep a list of failures instead). Re-architecting stuff can cause other issues that you would have to resolve. For example you may end up needing to derive TestSuite to make changes in support of the changes made to your TestCase.