unittest fails to load tests when the tests are in a package that has an __init__.pyc file and no __init__.py file.

Patch attached.

Is this the same bug as Issue 26481? I.e. is it the unittest dicovery mode that is affected? Maybe close the other bug as a duplicate, since Xavier has provided a patch here.

It seems to be the same bug.

Source-less distributions are useful on mobile devices where space is sparse.

Could you please add a test case.

Here is the patch with a test case.
I have checked that the new test case fails with 'Start directory is not importable"' when loader.py is not patched.

Thanks for the review Pamela, indeed self.vfs is not defined.

The patched test_unittest runs without failure because the list_dir() nested function is never called. It is also never called in the un-patched version. Actually the un-patched test_discover_start_dir_is_package_calls_package_load_tests runs without failure when changing '__init__.py' of vfs to 'foo' or whatever :(

> the list_dir() nested function is never called
Verifying that load_tests is called is the purpose of this test. In this case should_recurse is false in _find_tests() and os.listdir() is not invoked by this method.

This new patch does not use vfs and list_dir and uses subtests to also check that TestLoader.discover() does consider that a path refers to a package directory when it contains an '__init__.pyc' file and no '__init__.py' file, and vice-versa.