Question

I’m struggling to figure this one out, sessions work when i run my application normally but i can’t figure out how to set data in the session in my test case.

The docs say in a test case you have to save the session to apply the changes before making the request. https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/topics/testing/#persistent-state

e.g.

from django.test import TestCase

class TestLogin(TestCase):

    def test_processuser(self):
        redirect = '/processuser/'
        session = self.client.session
        session["id"] = '1234'
        session.save()
        response = self.client.get(redirect)

However the session object returned from self.client.session is just a normal python dict?

Diging into the code the Client.session call is this:

def _session(self):
    """
    Obtains the current session variables.
    """
    if 'django.contrib.sessions' in settings.INSTALLED_APPS:
        engine = import_module(settings.SESSION_ENGINE)
        cookie = self.cookies.get(settings.SESSION_COOKIE_NAME, None)
        if cookie:
            return engine.SessionStore(cookie.value)
    return {}
session = property(_session)

cookie = self.cookies.get(settings.SESSION_COOKIE_NAME, None) returns None so it just returns a dict in stead of a session store.

It looks like i have to do some more preparation in the test client before i save a session? Not really got much experience in this any help would be appreciated.

Django 1.2.5
Python 2.6.5

Cheers,

Asim.

Answer 1

The simplest thing would be to login as someone, so the test client would set the cookie for you.

self.client.login(username,password)

should do. Refer the documentation for more.