Accessing Django test client in setUpClass

[Nicole Harris]

I just posted this on Stack Overflow and then realised I might have more luck here.

Basically, I'd like to know if I can access self.client inside setUpClass(cls) when setting up a Django test:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28084683/accessing-django-test-client-in-setupclass

If anybody has any insight on this, I'd really appreciate it :)

[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Nicole,

(I've added this answer to SO as well)

Short answer is no - but that's not the end of the story.

self.client is a convenience that is configured as part of the "pre-test" sequence. This means it is configured on a per-test basis; so you can use it in setUp(), but not setUpClass(). 

However, there's nothing especially magical about self.client - it's just an instance of django.test.Client that Django sets up for you because it's something that is very useful to have around. You can set up your own client if you want - you just have to instantiate an instance of Client:

from django.test import Client

...

self.myclient = Client()

and then use self.myclient as you would self.client. This can be very useful if you need to check "two user" behaviour - for example, checking that if an admin approves an article, a user can then see it. You create two clients, log them in with separate accounts, and then GET the same article URL with each client. In your case, you could create a client purely for class setup activities.

The only caveat on using django.test.Client in setUpClass() relate to transactional side effects. setUpClass() doesn't fall inside the transaction protection of a test case, so anything you do in setUpClass() will be "permanent" on the test database. You'll need to manually roll back or undo any database changes that setUpClass makes, or you'll get cross-testcase side effects.

If you're using Django 1.8, you can use setUpTestData() instead - in this case, anything the client does *would* be protected by a transaction.

Yours,

Russ Magee %-)

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[Fred Stluka]

Nicole,

If you can't access self.client of TestCase, you can always
allocate one yourself as:

    c = Client()

See details in:
- http://www.dougalmatthews.com/2010/Jan/20/testing-your-first-django-app/

--Fred

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Fred Stluka -- mailto:fr...@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/
Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- Glad to be of service!
Open Source: Without walls and fences, we need no Windows or Gates.

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