.. note::

  Since 1.19.0, the actual implementation of the ``--boxed`` option has been moved to a
  separate plugin, `pytest-forked <https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-forked>`_
  which can be installed independently. The ``--boxed`` command-line options remains
  for backward compatibility reasons.


If your testing involves C or C++ libraries you might have to deal
with crashing processes.  The xdist-plugin provides the ``--boxed`` option
to run each test in a controlled subprocess.  Here is a basic example::

    # content of test_module.py

    import pytest
    import os
    import time

    # run test function 50 times with different argument
    @pytest.mark.parametrize("arg", range(50))
    def test_func(arg):
        time.sleep(0.05) # each tests takes a while
        if arg % 19 == 0:
            os.kill(os.getpid(), 15)

If you run this with::

    $ pytest -n1
    =========================== test session starts ============================
    platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 -- pytest-2.3.0.dev8
    plugins: xdist, bugzilla, cache, oejskit, cli, pep8, cov
    collecting ... collected 50 items

    test_module.py f..................f..................f...........

    ================================= FAILURES =================================
    _______________________________ test_func[0] _______________________________
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    ______________________________ test_func[19] _______________________________
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    ______________________________ test_func[38] _______________________________
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    =================== 3 failed, 47 passed in 3.41 seconds ====================

You'll see that a couple of tests are reported as crashing, indicated
by lower-case ``f`` and the respective failure summary. You can also use
the xdist-provided parallelization feature to speed up your testing::

    $ pytest -n3
    =========================== test session starts ============================
    platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 -- pytest-2.3.0.dev8
    plugins: xdist, bugzilla, cache, oejskit, cli, pep8, cov
    gw0 I / gw1 I / gw2 I
    gw0 [50] / gw1 [50] / gw2 [50]

    scheduling tests via LoadScheduling
    ..f...............f..................f............
    ================================= FAILURES =================================
    _______________________________ test_func[0] _______________________________
    [gw0] linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 /home/hpk/venv/1/bin/python
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    ______________________________ test_func[19] _______________________________
    [gw2] linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 /home/hpk/venv/1/bin/python
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    ______________________________ test_func[38] _______________________________
    [gw2] linux2 -- Python 2.7.3 /home/hpk/venv/1/bin/python
    /home/hpk/tmp/doc-exec-420/test_module.py:6: running the test CRASHED with signal 15
    =================== 3 failed, 47 passed in 2.03 seconds ====================
