test_output_contains

test_output_contains(text, pattern=True, no_output_msg=None, state=None)

Test the output.

Tests if the output contains a (pattern of) text.

Parameters:

• text (str) – the text that is searched for
• pattern (bool) – if True, the text is treated as a pattern. If False, it is treated as plain text. Defaults to False.
• no_output_msg (str) – feedback message to be displayed if the output is not found.

test_output_contains(text,
                     pattern=True,
                     no_output_msg=None)

We can test the output of the student contains with test_output_contains(). This function will compare the given text with the text in the student’s output and see if we have a match. You can use regular expressions or not, that’s completely up to you.

Here’s an example of an exercise with test_student_typed(), suppose the solution looks like this:

*** =solution
```{python}
# Print the "This is some ... stuff" to the shell
print("This is some weird stuff")
```

The following SCT tests whether the student outputs This is some weird stuff:

*** =sct
```{python}
test_output_contains("This is some weird stuff", pattern = False)
success_msg("Great job!")
```

Notice that we set pattern to False, this will cause test_output_contains() to search for the pure string, no patterns are used. This SCT is not robust, because it won’t be accepted if the student submits print("This is some cool stuff"), for example. Therefore, it’s a good idea to use regular expressions. pattern=True by default, so there’s no need to specify this:

*** =sct
```{python}
test_output_contains(/This is some \w* stuff/, 
                     no_output_msg = "Print out `This is some ... stuff` to the output, fill in `...` with a word you like.")
success_msg("Great job!")
```

Now, different printouts will be accepted. Notice that we also specified no_output_msg here. If the pattern is not found in the output generated, this message will be shown instead of a message that’s automatically generated by pythonwhat.