How do I run tox in a project that has no setup.py?

python unit-testing distutils tox
Kjir picture Kjir · Sep 23, 2013 · Viewed 12k times · Source

I would like to use tox to run my unittests in two virtualenvs, since my application has to support 2 different Python versions.

My problem is that tox requires a setup.py, but I have none since my application is not a module and has its own installer. For now I don't want to go through the hassle of automating the install process as to work with setup.py, I just want to run my unittests without having to write a setup.py.

Is that possible? Or how can I write an "empty" setup.py that simply does nothing? Can you point me towards some documentation on the subject (the distutils documentation explains how to write a meaningful setup.py, not an empty one)?

Answer

Kjir picture Kjir · Sep 24, 2013

After digging inside the source code, I found a scarcely documented option in tox.ini that skips sdist:

[tox]
skipsdist = BOOL    # defaults to false

Setting this to True I got what I wanted, saving me the effort of writing a meaningful setup.py

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