how to hook to setup_class and direct it's output to a file?

[Formartha]

Hi,

The company I work for have implemented the tests in such a way that all the tests aren't using fixtures but setup_class and teardown_class

How can I hook to this object to print it's output to a file? (I'm doing it for tests just not for setup_class and teardown_class)

[agammann]

You can collect this through pytest's setup and teardown reports, without changing the test classes. Put this in conftest.py:

from pathlib import Path
import pytest

@pytest.hookimpl(hookwrapper=True)
def pytest_runtest_makereport(item, call):
    outcome = yield
    report = outcome.get_result()
    for heading, content in report.sections:
        if heading == f"Captured stdout {report.when}":
            with Path("class-output.log").open("a", encoding="utf-8") as file:
                file.write(f"{item.nodeid} {report.when}:\n{content}")

I tested this with a class containing two tests on pytest 9.1.1. The setup_class print appeared once in the first test's setup report; the teardown_class print appeared once in the last test's teardown report. Filtering report.sections by phase matters: report.capstdout alone includes earlier phase output again in later reports. This captures all stdout in those phases, including fixture output; it cannot identify only setup_class prints. Keep pytest's normal capture enabled. TestReport.sections is documented.