Testing in Django

Testing in Python, particularly in Django, is very simple and easy. The framework actually provides many tools and utilities you can use to write tests for the models, serializers, or views in the application.

However, the Python ecosystem for testing relies a lot on one tool to write tests, and this tool has deep integration with Django. The tool is named Pytest and is a framework for writing small and readable tests. When used with Django, Pytest is mainly used for API testing by writing code to test API endpoints, databases, and user interfaces.

But why use Pytest? Well, it has the following advantages:

• It is free and open source.

• It has a simple syntax and is very easy to start with.

• It automatically detects test files, functions, and classes.

• It can run multiple tests in parallel, increasing the performance and the speed of running tests.

We’ll use Pytest in this project to write two kinds of tests: integration tests and unit tests.

Before starting to code, let’s learn about integration testing and unit testing by considering the concepts of TDD and the testing pyramid.

The testing pyramid

The testing pyramid is a framework that can help developers start with testing to create high-quality software. Basically, the testing pyramid specifies the types of tests that should be included in an automated test suite.

First of all, remember that the testing pyramid operates at three levels:

• Unit tests

• Integration tests

• End-to-end tests

The following figure shows the positions of each of these levels in the pyramid and how they are prioritized in terms of the speed performance and level of integration or isolation: