The RequestFactory shares the same API as
the test client. However, instead of behaving like a browser, the
RequestFactory provides a way to generate a request instance that can
be used as the first argument to any view. This means you can test a
view function the same way as you would test any other function – as
a black box, with exactly known inputs, testing for specific outputs.
The API for the RequestFactory is a slightly
restricted subset of the test client API:
get(),
post(), put(),
delete(), head(),
options(), and trace().follow. Since this is just a factory for producing
requests, it’s up to you to handle the response.The following is a simple unit test using the request factory:
from django.contrib.auth.models import AnonymousUser, User
from django.test import TestCase, RequestFactory
from .views import MyView, my_view
class SimpleTest(TestCase):
def setUp(self):
# Every test needs access to the request factory.
self.factory = RequestFactory()
self.user = User.objects.create_user(
username='jacob', email='jacob@…', password='top_secret')
def test_details(self):
# Create an instance of a GET request.
request = self.factory.get('/customer/details')
# Recall that middleware are not supported. You can simulate a
# logged-in user by setting request.user manually.
request.user = self.user
# Or you can simulate an anonymous user by setting request.user to
# an AnonymousUser instance.
request.user = AnonymousUser()
# Test my_view() as if it were deployed at /customer/details
response = my_view(request)
# Use this syntax for class-based views.
response = MyView.as_view()(request)
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
The ALLOWED_HOSTS setting is validated when running tests. This
allows the test client to differentiate between internal and external URLs.
Projects that support multitenancy or otherwise alter business logic based on
the request’s host and use custom host names in tests must include those hosts
in ALLOWED_HOSTS.
The first and simplest option to do so is to add the hosts to your settings file. For example, the test suite for docs.djangoproject.com includes the following:
from django.test import TestCase
class SearchFormTestCase(TestCase):
def test_empty_get(self):
response = self.client.get('/en/dev/search/', HTTP_HOST='docs.djangoproject.dev:8000')
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
and the settings file includes a list of the domains supported by the project:
ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
'www.djangoproject.dev',
'docs.djangoproject.dev',
...
]
Another option is to add the required hosts to ALLOWED_HOSTS using
override_settings() or
modify_settings(). This option may be
preferable in standalone apps that can’t package their own settings file or
for projects where the list of domains is not static (e.g., subdomains for
multitenancy). For example, you could write a test for the domain
http://otherserver/ as follows:
from django.test import TestCase, override_settings
class MultiDomainTestCase(TestCase):
@override_settings(ALLOWED_HOSTS=['otherserver'])
def test_other_domain(self):
response = self.client.get('http://otherserver/foo/bar/')
Disabling ALLOWED_HOSTS checking (ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']) when
running tests prevents the test client from raising a helpful error message if
you follow a redirect to an external URL.
Older versions didn’t validate ALLOWED_HOSTS while testing so these
techniques weren’t necessary.
If you’re testing a multiple database configuration with primary/replica (referred to as master/slave by some databases) replication, this strategy of creating test databases poses a problem. When the test databases are created, there won’t be any replication, and as a result, data created on the primary won’t be seen on the replica.
To compensate for this, Django allows you to define that a database is a test mirror. Consider the following (simplified) example database configuration:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'myproject',
'HOST': 'dbprimary',
# ... plus some other settings
},
'replica': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'myproject',
'HOST': 'dbreplica',
'TEST': {
'MIRROR': 'default',
},
# ... plus some other settings
}
}
In this setup, we have two database servers: dbprimary, described
by the database alias default, and dbreplica described by the
alias replica. As you might expect, dbreplica has been configured
by the database administrator as a read replica of dbprimary, so in
normal activity, any write to default will appear on replica.
If Django created two independent test databases, this would break any
tests that expected replication to occur. However, the replica
database has been configured as a test mirror (using the
MIRROR test setting), indicating that under
testing, replica should be treated as a mirror of default.
When the test environment is configured, a test version of replica
will not be created. Instead the connection to replica
will be redirected to point at default. As a result, writes to
default will appear on replica – but because they are actually
the same database, not because there is data replication between the
two databases.
By default, Django will assume all databases depend on the default
database and therefore always create the default database first.
However, no guarantees are made on the creation order of any other
databases in your test setup.
If your database configuration requires a specific creation order, you
can specify the dependencies that exist using the DEPENDENCIES test setting. Consider the following (simplified)
example database configuration:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
# ... db settings
'TEST': {
'DEPENDENCIES': ['diamonds'],
},
},
'diamonds': {
# ... db settings
'TEST': {
'DEPENDENCIES': [],
},
},
'clubs': {
# ... db settings
'TEST': {
'DEPENDENCIES': ['diamonds'],
},
},
'spades': {
# ... db settings
'TEST': {
'DEPENDENCIES': ['diamonds', 'hearts'],
},
},
'hearts': {
# ... db settings
'TEST': {
'DEPENDENCIES': ['diamonds', 'clubs'],
},
}
}
Under this configuration, the diamonds database will be created first,
as it is the only database alias without dependencies. The default and
clubs alias will be created next (although the order of creation of this
pair is not guaranteed), then hearts, and finally spades.
If there are any circular dependencies in the DEPENDENCIES definition, an
ImproperlyConfigured exception will be raised.
TransactionTestCase¶TransactionTestCase.available_apps¶Warning
This attribute is a private API. It may be changed or removed without a deprecation period in the future, for instance to accommodate changes in application loading.
It’s used to optimize Django’s own test suite, which contains hundreds of models but no relations between models in different applications.
By default, available_apps is set to None. After each test, Django
calls flush to reset the database state. This empties all tables
and emits the post_migrate signal, which
re-creates one content type and three permissions for each model. This
operation gets expensive proportionally to the number of models.
Setting available_apps to a list of applications instructs Django to
behave as if only the models from these applications were available. The
behavior of TransactionTestCase changes as follows:
post_migrate is fired before each
test to create the content types and permissions for each model in
available apps, in case they’re missing.post_migrate isn’t fired; it will be
fired by the next TransactionTestCase, after the correct set of
applications is selected.Since the database isn’t fully flushed, if a test creates instances of
models not included in available_apps, they will leak and they may
cause unrelated tests to fail. Be careful with tests that use sessions;
the default session engine stores them in the database.
Since post_migrate isn’t emitted after
flushing the database, its state after a TransactionTestCase isn’t the
same as after a TestCase: it’s missing the rows created by listeners
to post_migrate. Considering the
order in which tests are executed, this isn’t an
issue, provided either all TransactionTestCase in a given test suite
declare available_apps, or none of them.
available_apps is mandatory in Django’s own test suite.
TransactionTestCase.reset_sequences¶Setting reset_sequences = True on a TransactionTestCase will make
sure sequences are always reset before the test run:
class TestsThatDependsOnPrimaryKeySequences(TransactionTestCase):
reset_sequences = True
def test_animal_pk(self):
lion = Animal.objects.create(name="lion", sound="roar")
# lion.pk is guaranteed to always be 1
self.assertEqual(lion.pk, 1)
Unless you are explicitly testing primary keys sequence numbers, it is recommended that you do not hard code primary key values in tests.
Using reset_sequences = True will slow down the test, since the primary
key reset is an relatively expensive database operation.
If you are writing a reusable application you may want to use the Django test runner to run your own test suite and thus benefit from the Django testing infrastructure.
A common practice is a tests directory next to the application code, with the following structure:
runtests.py
polls/
__init__.py
models.py
...
tests/
__init__.py
models.py
test_settings.py
tests.py
Let’s take a look inside a couple of those files:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import sys
import django
from django.conf import settings
from django.test.utils import get_runner
if __name__ == "__main__":
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'tests.test_settings'
django.setup()
TestRunner = get_runner(settings)
test_runner = TestRunner()
failures = test_runner.run_tests(["tests"])
sys.exit(bool(failures))
This is the script that you invoke to run the test suite. It sets up the Django environment, creates the test database and runs the tests.
For the sake of clarity, this example contains only the bare minimum necessary to use the Django test runner. You may want to add command-line options for controlling verbosity, passing in specific test labels to run, etc.
SECRET_KEY = 'fake-key'
INSTALLED_APPS = [
"tests",
]
This file contains the Django settings required to run your app’s tests.
Again, this is a minimal example; your tests may require additional settings to run.
Since the tests package is included in INSTALLED_APPS when
running your tests, you can define test-only models in its models.py
file.
Clearly, unittest is not the only Python testing framework. While Django
doesn’t provide explicit support for alternative frameworks, it does provide a
way to invoke tests constructed for an alternative framework as if they were
normal Django tests.
When you run ./manage.py test, Django looks at the TEST_RUNNER
setting to determine what to do. By default, TEST_RUNNER points to
'django.test.runner.DiscoverRunner'. This class defines the default Django
testing behavior. This behavior involves:
test*.py.migrate to install models and initial data into the test
databases.Running the system checks was added.
If you define your own test runner class and point TEST_RUNNER at
that class, Django will execute your test runner whenever you run
./manage.py test. In this way, it is possible to use any test framework
that can be executed from Python code, or to modify the Django test execution
process to satisfy whatever testing requirements you may have.
A test runner is a class defining a run_tests() method. Django ships
with a DiscoverRunner class that defines the default Django testing
behavior. This class defines the run_tests() entry point, plus a
selection of other methods that are used to by run_tests() to set up,
execute and tear down the test suite.
DiscoverRunner(pattern='test*.py', top_level=None, verbosity=1, interactive=True, failfast=False, keepdb=False, reverse=False, debug_mode=False, debug_sql=False, **kwargs)[source]¶DiscoverRunner will search for tests in any file matching pattern.
top_level can be used to specify the directory containing your
top-level Python modules. Usually Django can figure this out automatically,
so it’s not necessary to specify this option. If specified, it should
generally be the directory containing your manage.py file.
verbosity determines the amount of notification and debug information
that will be printed to the console; 0 is no output, 1 is normal
output, and 2 is verbose output.
If interactive is True, the test suite has permission to ask the
user for instructions when the test suite is executed. An example of this
behavior would be asking for permission to delete an existing test
database. If interactive is False, the test suite must be able to
run without any manual intervention.
If failfast is True, the test suite will stop running after the
first test failure is detected.
If keepdb is True, the test suite will use the existing database,
or create one if necessary. If False, a new database will be created,
prompting the user to remove the existing one, if present.
If reverse is True, test cases will be executed in the opposite
order. This could be useful to debug tests that aren’t properly isolated
and have side effects. Grouping by test class is
preserved when using this option.
debug_mode specifies what the DEBUG setting should be
set to prior to running tests.
If debug_sql is True, failing test cases will output SQL queries
logged to the django.db.backends logger as well
as the traceback. If verbosity is 2, then queries in all tests are
output.
Django may, from time to time, extend the capabilities of the test runner
by adding new arguments. The **kwargs declaration allows for this
expansion. If you subclass DiscoverRunner or write your own test
runner, ensure it accepts **kwargs.
Your test runner may also define additional command-line options.
Create or override an add_arguments(cls, parser) class method and add
custom arguments by calling parser.add_argument() inside the method, so
that the test command will be able to use those arguments.
The debug_mode keyword argument was added.
DiscoverRunner.test_suite¶The class used to build the test suite. By default it is set to
unittest.TestSuite. This can be overridden if you wish to implement
different logic for collecting tests.
DiscoverRunner.test_runner¶This is the class of the low-level test runner which is used to execute
the individual tests and format the results. By default it is set to
unittest.TextTestRunner. Despite the unfortunate similarity in
naming conventions, this is not the same type of class as
DiscoverRunner, which covers a broader set of responsibilities. You
can override this attribute to modify the way tests are run and reported.
DiscoverRunner.test_loader¶This is the class that loads tests, whether from TestCases or modules or
otherwise and bundles them into test suites for the runner to execute.
By default it is set to unittest.defaultTestLoader. You can override
this attribute if your tests are going to be loaded in unusual ways.
DiscoverRunner.run_tests(test_labels, extra_tests=None, **kwargs)[source]¶Run the test suite.
test_labels allows you to specify which tests to run and supports
several formats (see DiscoverRunner.build_suite() for a list of
supported formats).
extra_tests is a list of extra TestCase instances to add to the
suite that is executed by the test runner. These extra tests are run
in addition to those discovered in the modules listed in test_labels.
This method should return the number of tests that failed.
DiscoverRunner.add_arguments(parser)[source]¶Override this class method to add custom arguments accepted by the
test management command. See
argparse.ArgumentParser.add_argument() for details about adding
arguments to a parser.
DiscoverRunner.setup_test_environment(**kwargs)[source]¶Sets up the test environment by calling
setup_test_environment() and setting
DEBUG to self.debug_mode (defaults to False).
DiscoverRunner.build_suite(test_labels, extra_tests=None, **kwargs)[source]¶Constructs a test suite that matches the test labels provided.
test_labels is a list of strings describing the tests to be run. A test
label can take one of four forms:
path.to.test_module.TestCase.test_method – Run a single test method
in a test case.path.to.test_module.TestCase – Run all the test methods in a test
case.path.to.module – Search for and run all tests in the named Python
package or module.path/to/directory – Search for and run all tests below the named
directory.If test_labels has a value of None, the test runner will search for
tests in all files below the current directory whose names match its
pattern (see above).
extra_tests is a list of extra TestCase instances to add to the
suite that is executed by the test runner. These extra tests are run
in addition to those discovered in the modules listed in test_labels.
Returns a TestSuite instance ready to be run.
DiscoverRunner.setup_databases(**kwargs)[source]¶Creates the test databases by calling
setup_databases().
DiscoverRunner.run_checks()[source]¶Runs the system checks.
DiscoverRunner.run_suite(suite, **kwargs)[source]¶Runs the test suite.
Returns the result produced by the running the test suite.
DiscoverRunner.get_test_runner_kwargs()[source]¶Returns the keyword arguments to instantiate the
DiscoverRunner.test_runner with.
DiscoverRunner.teardown_databases(old_config, **kwargs)[source]¶Destroys the test databases, restoring pre-test conditions by calling
teardown_databases().
django.test.utils¶To assist in the creation of your own test runner, Django provides a number of
utility methods in the django.test.utils module.
setup_test_environment(debug=None)[source]¶Performs global pre-test setup, such as installing instrumentation for the template rendering system and setting up the dummy email outbox.
If debug isn’t None, the DEBUG setting is updated to its
value.
The debug argument was added.
teardown_test_environment()[source]¶Performs global post-test teardown, such as removing instrumentation from the template system and restoring normal email services.
setup_databases(verbosity, interactive, keepdb=False, debug_sql=False, parallel=0, **kwargs)[source]¶Creates the test databases.
Returns a data structure that provides enough detail to undo the changes
that have been made. This data will be provided to the
teardown_databases() function at the conclusion of testing.
teardown_databases(old_config, parallel=0, keepdb=False)[source]¶Destroys the test databases, restoring pre-test conditions.
old_config is a data structure defining the changes in the database
configuration that need to be reversed. It’s the return value of the
setup_databases() method.
django.db.connection.creation¶The creation module of the database backend also provides some utilities that can be useful during testing.
create_test_db(verbosity=1, autoclobber=False, serialize=True, keepdb=False)¶Creates a new test database and runs migrate against it.
verbosity has the same behavior as in run_tests().
autoclobber describes the behavior that will occur if a
database with the same name as the test database is discovered:
autoclobber is False, the user will be asked to
approve destroying the existing database. sys.exit is
called if the user does not approve.True, the database will be destroyed
without consulting the user.serialize determines if Django serializes the database into an
in-memory JSON string before running tests (used to restore the database
state between tests if you don’t have transactions). You can set this to
False to speed up creation time if you don’t have any test classes
with serialized_rollback=True.
If you are using the default test runner, you can control this with the
the SERIALIZE entry in the TEST dictionary.
keepdb determines if the test run should use an existing
database, or create a new one. If True, the existing
database will be used, or created if not present. If False,
a new database will be created, prompting the user to remove
the existing one, if present.
Returns the name of the test database that it created.
create_test_db() has the side effect of modifying the value of
NAME in DATABASES to match the name of the test
database.
destroy_test_db(old_database_name, verbosity=1, keepdb=False)¶Destroys the database whose name is the value of NAME in
DATABASES, and sets NAME to the value of
old_database_name.
The verbosity argument has the same behavior as for
DiscoverRunner.
If the keepdb argument is True, then the connection to the
database will be closed, but the database will not be destroyed.
coverage.py¶Code coverage describes how much source code has been tested. It shows which parts of your code are being exercised by tests and which are not. It’s an important part of testing applications, so it’s strongly recommended to check the coverage of your tests.
Django can be easily integrated with coverage.py, a tool for measuring code
coverage of Python programs. First, install coverage.py. Next, run the
following from your project folder containing manage.py:
coverage run --source='.' manage.py test myapp
This runs your tests and collects coverage data of the executed files in your project. You can see a report of this data by typing following command:
coverage report
Note that some Django code was executed while running tests, but it is not
listed here because of the source flag passed to the previous command.
For more options like annotated HTML listings detailing missed lines, see the coverage.py docs.
Jun 14, 2020