TEST: Remove external file downloads in tests

[asoplata]

Currently, there are several tests that retrieve various files from different external locations on GitHub:

• hnn_core/tests/test_params.py::test_read_legacy_params ( https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/blob/master/hnn_core/tests/test_params.py#L46 ) downloads a file of size 5.7kb to hnn_core/param/default.param
  • hnn_core/tests/test_params.py::TestConvertToJson.test_convert_to_json_legacy() also downloads this same file
• hnn_core/tests/test_params.py::test_base_params ( https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/blob/master/hnn_core/tests/test_params.py#L66 ) downloads a file of size 6.4kb to hnn_core/param/base.json
• hnn_core/tests/test_params.py::test_remove_nulled_drives ( https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/blob/master/hnn_core/tests/test_params.py#L82 ) downloads a file of size 5.7kb to hnn_core/param/ERPYes100Trials.param
• hnn_core/tests/test_dipole.py::test_rmse ( https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/blob/master/hnn_core/tests/test_dipole.py#L282 ) downloads a data file of size 5.1kb called yes_trial_S1_ERP_all_avg.txt to wherever pytest is run from
• hnn_core/tests/test_parallel_backends.py::test_compare_hnn_core ( https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/blob/master/hnn_core/tests/test_parallel_backends.py#L204 ) downloads a data file of size 209kb called dpl.txt to wherever pytest is run from

These files should all be downloaded and moved into the test assets directory https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/tree/master/hnn_core/tests/assets since they are small, and it is unnecessary to download them every time tests are run (which is frequent!)

[jasmainak]

agreed! If it's a small file, definitely add it to a local folder. Remember that git tracks everything, so if you expect the file to change often, it's not a good idea to add to the local repo

[asoplata]

It seems that Github server errors related to serving these files is currently leading to test runner failures: https://github.com/jonescompneurolab/hnn-core/actions/runs/13037964941/job/36372944225#step:9:74 . To be clear, these new failures appear to be due to issues with Github servers themselves, not our use of them. These failures will probably spontaneously go away soon, but this is another reason to tackle this issue.