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However for data files checked in with the package, the general problem is where to put them, and how to find them at run time. Probably the best practice is to use the data subdirectory. This is intended for application data with the package, so you may want to make a subdirectory under it for testing files. The advantage of the data directory is that it is wired into the release. So if we add the directories

• MyPkg/data/testdata

and then at run time, SconsTools will create two directories:

• unitTestTutorial/data               # release data dir
• unitTestTutorial/data/MyPkg    # soft link to unitTestTutorial/MyPkg/data

create the file

• MyPkg/data/testdata/mytestfile.txt

there that starts with the string "my", then we can write a unit test that uses a psana utility to find the file and test that it starts with "my". The psana utility is Moreover psana provides a utility to find files in the data directory of the release. Namely the Python class AppDataPath in the AppUtils package (there is a C++ version there as well). So if we add the file

• MyPkg/data/testdata/mytestfile.txt

That starts with the string "my", then we could write the following unit test:version there as well). The unit test would look like

    def testMyFile(self):
        import os
        from AppUtils.AppDataPath import AppDataPath
        testFileDataRelPath = os.path.join('MyPkg', 'testdata', 'mytestfile.txt')
        testFilePath = AppDataPath(testFileDataRelPath).path()
        assert len(testFilePath)>0 , "test file (relative to release data dir): %s not found." % testFileDataRelPath
        fileText = file(testFilePath, 'r').read()
        self.assertTrue(fileText.startswith("my"),
                        msg="Test file=%s doesn't start with my" % testFilePath)

The It may be worth understanding the mechanism by which AppDataPath works. At run time, SconsTools will create two directories:

• unitTestTutorial/data               # release data dir
• unitTestTutorial/data/MyPkg    # soft link to unitTestTutorial/MyPkg/data

Moreover, when sit_setup was run, it will set is to use the environment variable SIT_DATA. This is set by SConsTools when scons is run. It SIT_DATA is a : separated list of paths, the first being the absolute path to unitTestTutorial/data, the second being the absolute path to the data directory of the base release. AppDataPath goes through these paths in order, returning the first match. One thing to note, scons test only runs tests for packages that are part of the working release. It does not run tests for all the packages that are part of the base release. Given this, there is no reason to search the base release, but there should be no harm as well. Harm could conceivably befall a developer who was modifying a test that is checked into an existing package in the base release. Were the developer to change the name of the test file in the working/test release, but not modify the unit test code to use the new name, then AppDataPath would find the old test file in the base release data directory.

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