Python for Testing 102 (PT102)

About the course

Python for Testing 102 (PT102) takes you beyond the fundamentals and into the practical world of building clean, maintainable, and scalable test suites using Python. You’ll learn how professional testers structure their code, manage resources, design robust assertions, apply mocking and fixtures, work with both unittest and pytest, and use TDD/BDD workflows to drive development with clarity and confidence.

By completing this course, you’ll build a strong foundation in software testing and be prepared for the PCAT™ – Certified Associate Tester with Python certification.

PT102 is organized into six learning modules. Each module explores a major area of Python-based software testing and includes step-by-step examples, hands-on tasks, and short assessments to help you put new skills into practice.

• Modules – each module is divided into concise lessons that introduce concepts progressively, helping you build skill and confidence.
• Lessons – each module contains focused, step-by-step lessons that introduce concepts in a clear and beginner-friendly way.
• Interactive Features – in the premium version, lessons include quizzes, coding tasks, and practice activities to help you apply what you learn.
• Final Test and Exam Prep Materials – to wrap up PT102, you’ll complete a final assessment aligned with the skills expected of PCAT™ candidates.

Prerequisites

To get the most out of PT102, you should have:

• completed Python for Testing 101 (PT101), or
• the PCEP™ – Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer certification, or
• equivalent foundational Python programming experience.

You should already be comfortable with basic Python programming. We recommend completing Python for Testing 101 (PT101), holding the PCEP™ – Certified Entry-Level Python Programmer certification, or having equivalent experience.

Associated Certification

Prior Experience Recommended:

Entry

PCET-30-0x

Certified Entry-Level Tester with Python

Associate

PCAT-31-0x

Certified Associate Tester with Python

What You Will Learn

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Grow a single project end-to-end – continue the Crossword Helper and evolve it (palindromes → ROT shifts → anagrams → pattern matching) with tests that guide the design.
• Strengthen your unittest toolkit – apply test anatomy and F.I.R.S.T., write precise assertions (assertEqual, assertAlmostEqual, assertRaises, assertCountEqual), remove duplication with setUp/tearDown and class/module hooks, use subTest(), and control runs with @skip/@expectedFailure.
• Adopt pytest for speed and clarity – native assert with rich introspection, reusable fixtures (including yield cleanup) and scopes (function → session), parameterization with @pytest.mark.parametrize, markers (skip/xfail/importorskip), targeted selection (-k/-m), verbosity and reports (-v, -r), and centralized config in pytest.ini.
• Mock with confidence – replace slow/fragile I/O using unittest.mock (stubs/fakes/spies, Mock/MagicMock, patch with spec/create_autospec) and the pytest-mock mocker fixture ("mock where it’s used").
• Measure and report – generate coverage with pytest-cov and share results via pytest-html (including self-contained reports).
• TDD & BDD – practice Red → Green → Refactor on small slices (and refactor safely with Pythonic improvements like zip()), then describe behavior with Gherkin (Feature/Scenario, Given/When/Then) and bind to Python step definitions (e.g., behave).

Course Syllabus

Python code example

Here’s a real snippet from the course so you can see how we learn in practice. One way to manage resources is by explicitly opening and closing them. Here’s an example of reading a file and making sure it gets closed:

Source Code:

main.py

file = open('the_file.txt')
try:
    for line in file:
        print(line, end='')
finally:
    file.close()

Let’s break this down:

1. We open the file: file = open('the_file.txt')
2. We process the file: read and print each line.
3. We close the file: the finally block ensures that the file gets closed, even if an error happens while processing it.