PlayStream.bundle/plex_test_case

Unit Tests for Plex Framework

This package is intended for Plex channel developers and aims for recreating the Plex Framework environment for unit testing the channel code. The framework runs channel code in a restricted sandbox and subjects it to various restrictions making it hard to test the code independently. This package provides means to test the channel code within the original sandbox as if it was run by the Plex Media Server.

Add to your channel

The suggested place for the tests is a Tests subdirectory of the Contents directory, but it’s not required. The most simple way to add this module to your channel is to install it as a git submodule:

1. Create and navigate to the Contents/Tests directory of your channel.

2. Add a submodule to your repo:

   git submodule add https://bitbucket.org/czukowski/plex-test-case.git plex_test_case

3. Initialize the submodule to have it download necessary code:

   git submodule update --init --recursive

Running tests

We’ll use Python bundled with Plex Media Server to run the tests. To have it set up correctly, quite a lot of paths need to be set up in PYTHONPATH. It helps to use an IDE that can help configure it more easily and also provide a test runner. The following setup is described for the PyCharm IDE (though know that PyCharm introduces a couple of its own obstacles to running tests).

1. On Windows, the Python interpreter is a file named PlexScriptHost.exe located in the Plex folder in Program Files. For some reason PyCharm doesn’t want to take a file with such name as a Python interpreter, so making its copy named python.exe may be necessary. It might be fixed somewhere in the future.

   For Plex on other operating systems things may be different.

   The interpreter is set in Settings / Project Interpreter dialog.

2. Unit test runner that comes with PyCharm is not very well compatible with the Python version Plex Media Server comes with. In PyCharm version 2017, a test runner tries to use a discover module which can not be found in Plex distribution (see PY-24057). The workaround for now is, sadly, editing a test runner helper file named _jb_unittest_runner.py, where you can add import discover module and skip the highlighted lines on ImportError. In PyCharm versions before 2017, the test runner, utrunner.py does not load modules from a ZIP file. To fix it, pycharm_run_utils.py needs to be patched as described in PY-12072. This is not good as the IDE updates will overwrite those files and you’ll need to do it again.

3. Python libraries and extensions must be included in PYTHONPATH. The easy way to do it is to add them as content roots in Settings / Project Structure dialog. The following files and directories are needed (example again from Windows, other OS users should figure that on their own, sorry):

   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\DLLs
   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Exts
   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\python27.zip

4. Plex Framework specific code also need to be included in PYTHONPATH. This is done the same way as above, but first the actual base path has to be determined. It is located in a subfolder named Plug-ins-??????? under the path %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\ (question marks stand for a string that resembles a git commit id) and may be different depending on the Plex Media Server version. Also it may change on PMS update and the old folder deleted. A good idea may be to create a symbolic link named just Plug-ins and re-link it with each server update instead of re-configuring a number of paths in all projects. The following directories need to be added as content roots:

   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Plug-ins-???????\Framework.bundle\Contents\Resources\Platforms\Shared\Libraries
   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Plug-ins-???????\Framework.bundle\Contents\Resources\Versions\2\Python
   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Plug-ins-???????\Framework.bundle\Contents\Resources\Versions\1\Python
   • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Resources\Plug-ins-???????\Framework.bundle\Contents\Resources\Versions\0\Python

   Note the different framework versions in the list above, their load order is actually important, but PyCharm doesn’t seem to offer a way to add the Content Roots in a specific order. A workaround for that is implemented in bootstrap.py to change the load order if needed.

5. A run configuration for unit tests needs to be added for the project. Make sure ‘Add content roots to PYTHONPATH’ is checked. There is also an option to set environment variables that could be used to add the folders above to PYTHONPATH, but adding them as content roots has a benefit of offering some insight into the actual Framework code during debugging as well as a (very) limited code completion.

It should be possible to run the tests without any IDE and its test runners. The only thing necessary would be to configure PYTHONPATH to include all the paths mentioned above, perhaps by creating a batch file.

Creating test cases

Test case classes must extend the base test class, PlexTestCase. It provides the functionality to initialize the framework and import the tested module in its sandbox. See __init__.py file for the implementation details. Many of it may be still work in progress though.

To test the module, create a test case module with the same name and a _test suffix, then the tested module may be accessed using self.module property. If you choose another naming convention, you’ll need to set module_name attribute in the test case class beforehand. Note that the tested module must be imported from Code/__init__.py either directly or indirectly in order for it to be added to the sandboxed environment.

It is possible to test request handling by the channel controllers, using self.request() method.

HTTP requests made during testing will not send for real. The intention is to be able to mock these requests and return predefined responses. The desired response body and headers may be preset using self.networking.http_response_body and self.networking.http_response_headers in the test case class respectively.

There is a shortcut method to load file contents, accessible via self.get_file_contents(). It takes a file name that is placed under the current module’s subdirectory named after the current test case class.

Example test case module:

from plex_test_case import PlexTestCase
from Framework.api.objectkit import ObjectContainer

class MyChannelTest(PlexTestCase):

    def test_main_menu(self):
        # Load './MyChannelTest/MainMenuObjectContainer.xml' as expected XML generated by channel.
        expected = self.get_file_contents('MainMenuObjectContainer.xml')
        # Fix HTTP response from the './MyChannelTest/Index.html' file contents.
        self.networking.http_response_body = self.get_file_contents('Index.html')
        # Make a request to channel code (which makes a HTTP request mocked above).
        status, headers, body = self.request('/video/mychannel')
        # Check the return values against expected.
        self.assertEquals(200, status)
        self.assertEquals('application/xml', headers['Content-Type'])
        self.assertEquals(expected, body)

class ParserTest(PlexTestCase):

    module_name = 'parser'

    def test_parse(self):
        # Load './ParserTest/Homepage.html' as input for parser.
        contents = self.get_file_contents('Homepage.html')
        # This is what the channel code would have called as 'HTML.ElementFromString(contents)'.
        # Shared Code modules (*.pys) run in a separate sandbox and could be accessed as `self.shared_code_environment`.
        nav = self.environment['HTML'].ElementFromString(contents)
        # Invoke `parse_categories()` function in 'parser.py' module.
        actual = self.module.parse_categories(nav)
        # Check actual return value against expected data structure, etc...
        ...

License

This code is distributed under the MIT License.