Test method collection does not follow documentation's naming convention.

[NikolasKomonen]

pytest: 6.1.2
python: 3.6.8

The documentation indicates that naming must follow:

Test method names or function names should start with “test_”, as in test_example(). Methods with names that don’t match this pattern won’t be executed as tests.

---

But in my example:

# test_my_func.py

import pytest

def tester_my_function():
    assert False

def test_my_function():
    assert True 

if I call:

$ pytest --collect-only  

both functions get collected even though first ones name starts with tester_

---

If this the accepted functionality, I think that the documentation should be updated to indicate that it will collect it if it starts with test and not test_

[aklajnert]

The docs you've pointed out seems to be for some quite old version (2.9.2). In the current docs, this is stated correctly: https://docs.pytest.org/en/stable/goodpractices.html#conventions-for-python-test-discovery

I don't see any branch for the version of the docs you've linked to, I guess it is some leftover on readthedocs.

[NikolasKomonen]

Thanks for figuring that out, @aklajnert

---

fyi when I search anything related to "pytest naming conventions" the outdated doc is the first result, if anyone plans to remove the page.

[nicoddemus]

Yeah recently we had a few cases of misunderstandings because of old links.

Usually we only really keep two docs up-to-date, which is stable and latest.

What should we do with old documentation pages?

Btw the docs mentioned in the original issue are quite old, from the reorganize-docs branch, back in 2016. I don't think we will really pick it up again at this point, perhaps we can just delete them to avoid confusion? @pfctdayelise @hackebrot?

[nicoddemus]

Closing this for now, #8098 is a follow up.

[nicoddemus]

Thanks @aklajnert for figuring it out quickly!