Unittesting REST API Python

Question

I am just trying to test the CRUD operations for Flask REST service.

1. In CREATEoperation, i want to create a new object.
2. In UPDATE operation, i need to get the id of the object created in Create operation and update it.
3. In DELETE operation, i need to delete the object created in Create operation.

How can i approach this?

The current code looks something like this

class BaseTestCase(TestCase):
    def create_app(self):
        return create_app('testing')

    def setUp(self):
        self.response = self.client.get('/api/v1/list_portfolios').json
        self.portfolio_id = self.response['respbody']['Portfolios'][0]['_id']
        self.view_response = self.client.get('/api/v1/view_portfolio/' + self.portfolio_id).json

class ModelTestAPI(BaseTestCase):
    def test_model_create(self):
        model_create_data = {
            "PortfolioId": "558d0e575dddb726b8cd06bc",
            "ModelName": "New Model",
            "ModelLifetimePeriod": "Month",
            "ModelLifetimeDuration": 12
        }
        response = self.client.post('/api/v1/model/create', data=dumps(model_create_data),
                                    content_type='application/json').json
        portfolio_model_id = response['respbody']['_id']
        print(portfolio_model_id)

        new_model_dict = model_create_data.copy()
        new_model_dict['_id'] = portfolio_model_id

        new_json = response['respbody'].copy()
        new_json.pop('CreateDate', None)
        new_json.pop('LastUpdateDate', None)

        self.assertDictEqual(new_model_dict, new_json)

    def test_model_update(self):
        data = {
            "ModelName": "UPDATE New Model",
            "ModelLifetimePeriod": "Month",
            "ModelLifetimeDuration": 6
        }
        portfolio_model_id = self.view_response['respbody']['PortfolioModels'][-1]['_id']
        json = self.client.put('/api/v1/model/' + portfolio_model_id, data=dumps(data),
                               content_type='application/json').json

        data['_id'] = portfolio_model_id
        new_json = json['respbody'].copy()
        new_json.pop('CreateDate', None)
        new_json.pop('LastUpdateDate', None)
        new_json.pop('PortfolioId', None)

        self.assertDictEqual(data, new_json)

    def test_model_delete(self):
        portfolio_model_id = self.view_response['respbody']['PortfolioModels'][-1]['_id']
        json = self.client.delete('http://localhost:5000/api/v1/model/' + portfolio_model_id).json
        expected_dict = {'success': True}
        self.assertDictEqual(expected_dict, json['respbody'])

Answer 1

According to my experience, first you build a web service, second starting to write unittest

Web service for examples:

from rest_framework.views import APIView
class view_example(APIView):
    def get(self, request, format=None):
        ...
    def post(self, request, format=None):
        ...
    def put(self, request, format=None):
        ...
    def delete(self, request, format=None):
        ...

To write unittest when you are sure that you register the view in urls.py.

from rest_framework.test import APITestCase

class ViewExampleTests(APITestCase):
    def test_create(self):
        ...
        response = self.client.post(url, data, format='json')
        ...
    def test_update(self):
        ...
        response = self.client.put(url, data, format='json')
        ...
    def test_delete(self):
        ...
        response = self.client.delete(url, data, format='json')
        ...
    def test_read(self):
        ...
        response = self.client.get(url, data, format='json')
        ...

However, It's substantial completion of the works.