[Django]-Want to disable signals in Django testing

I found this question when looking to disable a signal for a set of test cases and Germano’s answer lead me to the solution but it takes the opposite approach so I thought I’d add it.

In your test class:

class MyTest(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        # do some setup
        signals.disconnect(listener, sender=FooModel)

Instead of adding decision code to adding the signal I instead disabled it at the point of testing which feels like a nicer solution to me (as the tests should be written around the code rather than the code around the tests). Hopefully is useful to someone in the same boat!

Edit: Since writing this I’ve been introduced to another way of disabling signals for testing. This requires the factory_boy package (v2.4.0+) which is very useful for simplifying tests in Django. You’re spoilt for choice really:

import factory
from django.db.models import signals

class MyTest(TestCase):
    @factory.django.mute_signals(signals.pre_save, signals.post_save)
    def test_something(self):

Caveat thanks to ups: it mutes signals inside factory and when an object is created, but not further inside test when you want to make explicit save() – signal will be unmuted there. If this is an issue then using the simple disconnect in setUp is probably the way to go.

Here’s a full example with imports on how to disable a specific signal in a test, if you don’t want to use FactoryBoy.

from django.db.models import signals
from myapp.models import MyModel

class MyTest(TestCase):

    def test_no_signal(self):
        signals.post_save.disconnect(sender=MyModel, dispatch_uid="my_id")

        ... after this point, the signal is disabled ...

This should be matched against your receiver, this example would match this receiver:

@receiver(post_save, sender=MyModel, dispatch_uid="my_id")

I tried to disable the signal without specifying the dispatch_uid and it didn’t work.

All the answers didn’t work for me except when I used Factory Boy by @krischan.

In my case, I want to disable signals that are part of another package django_elasticsearch_dsl which I couldn’t locate the reciever or the dispatch_uid.

I don’t want to add Factory Boy package, and I managed to disable the signals by reading its code to know how the signals are muted and it turned out very simple:

from django.db.models import signals

class MyTest(TestCase):
    def test_no_signal(self):
        signals.post_save.receivers = []

We can replace post_save with appropriate signal we want to disable, also we can put this in a setUp method for all tests.

I had a similar issue and wasn’t able to successfully disconnect my signal using signals.post_save.disconnect(). Found this alternative approach that creates a decorator to override the SUSPEND_SIGNALS setting on specified tests and signals. Might be useful for anyone in the same boat.

First, create the decorator:

import functools

from django.conf import settings
from django.dispatch import receiver

def suspendingreceiver(signal, **decorator_kwargs):
    def our_wrapper(func):
        @receiver(signal, **decorator_kwargs)
        @functools.wraps(func)
        def fake_receiver(sender, **kwargs):
            if settings.SUSPEND_SIGNALS:
                return
            return func(sender, **kwargs)
        return fake_receiver
    return our_wrapper

Replace the usual @receiver decorator on your signal with the new one:

@suspendingreceiver(post_save, sender=MyModel)
def mymodel_post_save(sender, **kwargs):
    work()

Use Django’s override_settings() on your TestCase:

@override_settings(SUSPEND_SIGNALS=True)
class MyTestCase(TestCase):
    def test_method(self):
        Model.objects.create()  # post_save_receiver won't execute

Thanks to Josh Smeaton, who wrote the blog.

If you connect receivers to signals in AppConfig.ready, which is recommended by documentation, see https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/topics/signals/#connecting-receiver-functions, you can create an alternative AppConfig for your tests with other signal receivers.

You can do the following

from factory.django import mute_signals
from django.db.models import signals
def test_your_code():
    with mute_signals(signals.post_save):
        # ... code that doesn't trigger signals

The easiest way is using a fixture. just place this function inside your test file outside any class this will run automatically.

from django.db.models.signals import pre_save, post_save

@pytest.fixture(autouse=True) # Automatically use in tests.
def mute_signals(request):
    post_save.receivers = []
    pre_save.receivers = []

for more details see this https://www.cameronmaske.com/muting-django-signals-with-a-pytest-fixture/

Factory library has a function that you can use as fixture on functions.
Here is an example on how to implement it.

from django.db.models import signals
from factory.django import mute_signals

from app.models import Model

@mute_signals(signals.pre_save, signals.post_save)
def function():
    instance = Model.objects.get(id=1)
    instance.attribute = "modify"
    instance.save()