| ================= |
| Testing in Django |
| ================= |
|
|
| Automated testing is an extremely useful bug-killing tool for the modern |
| web developer. You can use a collection of tests -- a **test suite** -- to |
| solve, or avoid, a number of problems: |
|
|
| * When you're writing new code, you can use tests to validate your code |
| works as expected. |
|
|
| * When you're refactoring or modifying old code, you can use tests to |
| ensure your changes haven't affected your application's behavior |
| unexpectedly. |
|
|
| Testing a web application is a complex task, because a web application is made |
| of several layers of logic -- from HTTP-level request handling, to form |
| validation and processing, to template rendering. With Django's test-execution |
| framework and assorted utilities, you can simulate requests, insert test data, |
| inspect your application's output and generally verify your code is doing what |
| it should be doing. |
|
|
| The preferred way to write tests in Django is using the :mod:`unittest` module |
| built-in to the Python standard library. This is covered in detail in the |
| :doc:`overview` document. |
|
|
| You can also use any *other* Python test framework; Django provides an API and |
| tools for that kind of integration. They are described in the |
| :ref:`other-testing-frameworks` section of :doc:`advanced`. |
|
|
| .. toctree:: |
| :maxdepth: 1 |
|
|
| overview |
| tools |
| advanced |
|
|
