How do unit tests work in django-tagging, because I want mine to run like that?

Question

Few times while browsing tests dir in various Django apps I stumbled across models.py and settings.py files (in django-tagging for example).

But there's no code to be found that syncs test models or applies custom test settings - but tests make use of them just as if django would auto-magically load them. However if I try to run django-tagging's tests: manage.py test tagging, it doesn't do even a single test.

This is exactly what I need right now to test my app, but don't really know how.

So, how does it work?

Answer 1

You mean, "How do I write unit tests in Django?" Check the documentation on testing.

When I've done it, I wrote unit tests in a test/ subdirectory. Make sure the directory has an empty __init__.py file. You may also need a models.py file. Add unit tests that derive from unittest.TestCase (in module unittest). Add the module 'xxxx.test' to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py (where 'xxxx' is the base name of your application).

Here's some sample code of mine to get you started:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/testing/

from sys import stderr
import unittest
from django.test.client import Client
from expenses.etl.loader import load_all, load_init

class TestCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        print "setUp"

    def testLoading(self):
        print "Calling load_init()"
        load_init()
        print "Calling load_all()"
        load_all()
        print "Done"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

If you mean, "How do I get data loaded into my unit tests?", then use fixtures, described on the same documentation page.

Answer 2

If you want to run the tests in django-tagging, you can try:

django-admin.py test --settings=tagging.tests.settings

Basically, it uses doctests which are in the tests.py file inside the tests package/directory. The tests use the settings file in that same directory (and specified in the command line to django-admin). For more information see the django documentation on writing doctests.