Tests for views in Django application

Question

I have few models in my models.py. Two of them are as follows:

class Event():
      eventName = models.CharField( unique = True )

class Job():
      event = models.ForeignKey(Event)
      jobName = models.CharField

      class Meta:
          unique_together(('event','jobName'))

I was testing a modelform of this class, using Client module from django.test. The test where I am failing is while testing for unique_together property

Following is my test.py

class TestJobView(TestCase):
    def test_duplicate_job_in_same_event(self):
        Event.objects.create(eventName='test_event', noOfVolunteersRequired=10,
                startDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05', endDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05')

        Job.objects.create(event=Event.objects.get(eventName='test_event'),
                   jobName='test_jobName',jobDescription='test_jobDescription_1',
                   noOfVolunteersRequired=10, startDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05', 
                   endDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05')
        self.assertEqual(1, Job.objects.filter(event__eventName='test_event', 
                           jobName='test_jobName').count())

        c = Client()

        response = c.post('/AdminUnit/job/',{'event' : 'test_event',
        'jobName' : 'test_jobName','jobDescription' : 'test_jobDescription_2',
        'startDate' : '2014-05-05 05:05:05', 'endDate' : '2014-05-05 05:05:05', 
        'noOfVolunteersRequired' : 5})

        self.assertEqual(200, response.status_code)
        print response.context['jobsForm']['event'].errors

The result of the above test prints Select a valid choice. That choice is not one of the available choices.

Now, I have two questions. Firstly, this exception should not have been raised as an event is already created and is also asserted True in the above method. Secondly, If I try the same thing from my view, It raises a non_field_error and says Job with this Event and JobName already exists. . How do I capture this in my tests.py using response ?

Answer 1

You don't show your view or form, but presumably you are just using the default ModelForm which represents a ForeignKey as a ModelChoiceField. So, the value to post for event is not the name, but the ID, which you should capture when you create the Event at the start of the test.

I should add, however, that I don't think you should be testing this at all. Unit tests are for your code, not Django's. unique_together is a part of Django itself and as such is very well-covered by the Django's own unit tests. There is no need for you to replicate that functionality explicitly.

Edit

I don't understand your second comment. Your test should look like this:

def test_duplicate_job_in_same_event(self):
    event = Event.objects.create(...)
    job = Job.objects.create(event=event, ...)
    response = self.client.post('/AdminUnit/job/',{'event' : event.id, ...})

Answer 2

Ad Daniel Roseman noticed, unique_together should not be tested here. If it should be tested at all is a mater of opinion. However, the unique_together is defined on model level, and luckily everything becomes much simpler when you unit-test it there:

class TestJob(TestCase):
    def test_duplicate_in_same_event(self):
        event = Event.objects.create(
            eventName='test_event', noOfVolunteersRequired=10,
            startDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05', endDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05')

        Job.objects.create(
            event=event,
            jobName='test_jobName',jobDescription='test_jobDescription_1',
            noOfVolunteersRequired=10, startDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05', 
            endDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05')

        job = Job(
            event=event,
            jobName='test_jobName',jobDescription='test_jobDescription_1',
            noOfVolunteersRequired=10, startDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05', 
            endDate='2014-05-05 05:05:05')

        with self.assertRaises(ValidationError):
            job.validate_unique()