[Django]-Django Rest Framework – How to test ViewSet?

I think I found the correct syntax, but not sure if it is conventional (still new to Django):

def test_view_set(self):
    request = APIRequestFactory().get("")
    cat_detail = CatViewSet.as_view({'get': 'retrieve'})
    cat = Cat.objects.create(name="bob")
    response = cat_detail(request, pk=cat.pk)
    self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)

So now this passes and I can assign request.user, which allows me to customize the retrieve method under CatViewSet to consider the user.

I had the same issue, and was able to find a solution.

Looking at the source code, it looks like the view expects there to be an argument ‘actions’ that has a method items ( so, a dict ).

https://github.com/tomchristie/django-rest-framework/blob/master/rest_framework/viewsets.py#L69

This is where the error you’re getting is coming from. You’ll have to specify the argument actions with a dict containing the allowed actions for that viewset, and then you’ll be able to test the viewset properly.

The general mapping goes:

{
    'get': 'retrieve',
    'put': 'update',
    'patch': 'partial_update',
    'delete': 'destroy'
}

http://www.django-rest-framework.org/tutorial/6-viewsets-and-routers

In your case you’ll want {‘get’: ‘retrieve’}
Like so:

class ViewSetTest(TestCase):
    def test_view_set(self):
        factory = APIRequestFactory()
        view = CatViewSet.as_view(actions={'get': 'retrieve'}) # <-- Changed line
        cat = Cat(name="bob")
        cat.save()

        request = factory.get(reverse('cat-detail', args=(cat.pk,)))
        response = view(request)

EDIT: You’ll actually need to specify the required actions. Changed code and comments to reflect this.

I found a way to do this without needing to manually create the right viewset and give it an action mapping:

from django.core.urlresolvers import reverse, resolve
...
url = reverse('cat-list')
req = factory.get(url)
view = resolve(url).func
response = view(req)
response.render()

I think it’s your last line. You need to call the CatViewSet as_view(). I would go with:

response = view(request)

given that you already defined view = CatViewSet.as_view()

EDIT:

Can you show your views.py? Specifically, what kind of ViewSet did you use? I’m digging through the DRF code and it looks like you may not have any actions mapped to your ViewSet, which is triggering the error.

I needed to get this working with force authentication, and finally got it, here is what my test case looks like:

from django.test import TestCase
from rest_framework.test import APIRequestFactory
from django.db.models.query import QuerySet
from rest_framework.test import force_authenticate
from django.contrib.auth.models import User

from config_app.models import Config
from config_app.apps import ConfigAppConfig
from config_app.views import ConfigViewSet

class ViewsTestCase(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        # Create a test instance
        self.config = Config.objects.create(
            ads='{"frequency": 1, "site_id": 1, "network_id": 1}',
            keys={}, methods={}, sections=[], web_app='{"image": 1, "label": 1, "url": 1}',
            subscriptions=[], name='test name', build='test build', version='1.0test', device='desktop',
            platform='android', client_id=None)

        # Create auth user for views using api request factory
        self.username = 'config_tester'
        self.password = 'goldenstandard'
        self.user = User.objects.create_superuser(self.username, 'test@example.com', self.password)

    def tearDown(self):
        pass

    @classmethod
    def setup_class(cls):
        """setup_class() before any methods in this class"""
        pass

    @classmethod
    def teardown_class(cls):
        """teardown_class() after any methods in this class"""
        pass

    def shortDescription(self):
        return None


    def test_view_set1(self):
        """
        No auth example
        """
        api_request = APIRequestFactory().get("")
        detail_view = ConfigViewSet.as_view({'get': 'retrieve'})
        response = detail_view(api_request, pk=self.config.pk)
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 401)

    def test_view_set2(self):
        """
        Auth using force_authenticate
        """
        factory = APIRequestFactory()
        user = User.objects.get(username=self.username)
        detail_view = ConfigViewSet.as_view({'get': 'retrieve'})

        # Make an authenticated request to the view...
        api_request = factory.get('')
        force_authenticate(api_request, user=user)
        response = detail_view(api_request, pk=self.config.pk)
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)

I’m using this with the django-nose test runner and it seems to be working well. Hope it helps those that have auth enabled on their viewsets.