Write multiple tests to the same cassette

Is it possible to write multiple tests to the same cassette? If multiple tests are making the same API calls, it’s inefficient to record them again and again, better to use a shared cassette.

This is possible with vcr.use_cassette, but doesn’t seem to be possible with pytest.mark.vcr, since the default cassette name is always the test name.

For example:

@pytest.mark.vcr("tests/cassettes/shared_cassette.yaml")
def test_a(): ...

@pytest.mark.vcr("tests/cassettes/shared_cassette.yaml")
def test_b(): ...

In this example, you will still write new cassettes to tests/cassettes/test_a.yaml and tests/cassettes/test_b.yaml, rather than using the shared one.

[DevilXD]

I think it’d be just fine to make it always write to the first cassette specified, while reading from all specified. If someone would need more control than that instead, I suggest making it possible to specify cassette fixtures as test arguments, roughly like pytest currently does with parametrization.

Reference: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/example/parametrize.html#parametrizing-conditional-raising (follow the link there for argument inputs types too)

Example:

@pytest.mark.vcr(gitlab_cassette="gitlab.yaml", slack_cassette="slack.yaml")
def test_apis(gitlab_cassette, slack_cassette):  # specifying more than one cassette kwarg enforces having to use the context manager yourself
    with gitlab_cassette:  # specify exactly what cassette you want to use here
        requests.get(...)
    with slack_cassette:
        requests.post(...)

This would also allow on custom operations being done on a cassette, such as using .rewind() - I’m not aware of an easy possibility of being able to do that right now.

Other possible usages:

@pytest.mark.vcr("main.yaml")  # just the cassette name, no kwarg
def test_apis(cassette):  # default fixture name giving access to the cassette itself
    # not specifying the cassette name as a kwarg means the entire test is implicatively wrapped just like before
    requests.get(...)
    cassette.rewind()  # possible given the cassette itself now
    requests.get(...)

@pytest.mark.vcr(my_cassette="main.yaml")  # explicit kwarg
def test_apis(my_cassette):  # fixture name matches the kwarg
    with my_cassette:  # explicit kwarg enforces context manager usage (just like in the above case with two of those)
        requests.get(...)
    my_cassette.rewind()  # possible given the cassette itself now
    with my_cassette:
        requests.post(...)

[Diaoul]

So here is my use case as it is slightly different from what this ticket was originally about: I want to isolate some recordings done in a fixture in a specific cassette so it is not recorded for every test running the fixture.

Example: a fixture that provides a logged in client for a specific API to other tests

# this I want in a specific cassette
@pytest.fixture(scope="module")
async def client():
    async with SomeClient() as client:
        await client.login("username", "password")
        yield client


# this can be on it's own cassette, without the login part
@pytest.mark.vcr
@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_complex_operation(client):
    response = await client.complex_operation()

    assert response.status_code == 200