How to masquerade test package as another test package

[lukjak]

Hello,

I have a situation, where I need to run a pytest package (=directory with test_*.py files) with some nonstandard configuration. The point is, that this nonstandard configuration has to look like another pytest package (and this configuration has nothing to do with pytest configuration itself). For example given the structure

─ real_package/
   ├─ test_1.py
   ├─ test_2.py
   ├─ conftest.py
─ fake_package/
   ├─ test_dummy_empty.py
   ├─ conftest.py

I want to run pytest fake_package and get actually real_package executed. (And inbetween I do some tooling changes which are unrelated to pytest).

I have two below ideas about this (looks like both are somewhat working at first shot), but I am looking for some "proper" solution which would avoid any surprises (which also will survive migration from pytest 6 to 7 btw):

• just run pytest.main() for real_module from some early hook in fake_module.conftest.py (and make fake_package generally empty otherwise)
• modify (recreate? - this seems to be not quite straightforward) Config object in pytest_configure hook in fake_module.conftest.py (like change paths etc.) and let pytest do the rest

What is the best way here?

TIA