QST: [contributor question] how to run tests against local repo with Docker development environment

[rendner]

This is a contribution related question.

To keep the configuration effort as small as possible, I want to use the Docker development environment.
The following commands are from the linked documentation:

# Build the image pandas-yourname-env
docker build --tag pandas-yourname-env .
# Run a container and bind your local forked repo, pandas-yourname, to the container
docker run -it --rm -v path-to-pandas-yourname:/home/pandas-yourname pandas-yourname-env

After a successful build of the Docker image. I want to run tests against my local forked repo.
The Docker image was build with: docker build --tag pandas-rendner-env .

Steps To Run Tests

• start container: docker run -it --rm --workdir="/home/pandas" -v <PATH_TO_MY_LOCAL_FORKED_REPO>:/home/pandas pandas-rendner-env
• run tests ./test_fast.sh

It fails with the following output:

ImportError while loading conftest '/home/pandas/pandas/conftest.py'.
pandas/__init__.py:22: in <module>
    from pandas.compat import is_numpy_dev as _is_numpy_dev
pandas/compat/__init__.py:15: in <module>
    from pandas.compat.numpy import (
pandas/compat/numpy/__init__.py:4: in <module>
    from pandas.util.version import Version
pandas/util/__init__.py:1: in <module>
    from pandas.util._decorators import (  # noqa:F401
pandas/util/_decorators.py:14: in <module>
    from pandas._libs.properties import cache_readonly  # noqa:F401
pandas/_libs/__init__.py:13: in <module>
    from pandas._libs.interval import Interval
E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pandas._libs.interval'

This is understandable because my local repo doesn't contain built C extensions.
But it was not expected by me after reading the example how to bind a local forked repo.

To make it work I have to build the C extensions with python setup.py build_ext -j 4 in the Docker container.
This additional step has to be done at least once (not on every container start) to create the required files.
Afterwards I can successfully run ./test_fast.sh.

Is this the correct way to run tests against a local repo? Or I'm doing something wrong?

[MarcoGorelli]

Hey - yeah in https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/development/contributing_environment.html it says

Note that you might need to rebuild the C extensions if/when you merge with upstream/main using:

python setup.py build_ext -j 4

though it could arguably made clearer - feel free to raise a PR to clarify this if you can think of clearer wording/layout

[rendner]

@MarcoGorelli Thank you. I had seen the hint but did not understand it at the time. Later I simply overlooked it, because I thought that this belongs to the paragraph PyCharm (Professional).

feel free to raise a PR to clarify this if you can think of clearer wording/layout

I will have a look at it when I have time again.