Mocking django's database save
django, django-unittest, mocking, python, unit-testing
Solution
"This is one of my first attempts to get serious with django and testing" ... you don't need to mock database saves as Django automatically creates a test DB to run your test suite against whenever you run `python manage.py test`. Then simply assert the values stored in your DB.
Ideally mock is used to patch own tests (and logic), rather than the default Django ones.
Tip: use an in memory db for unit tests, such as `sqlite` put the below in your `settings.py` file:
if 'test' in sys.argv:
DATABASES['default']['ENGINE'] = 'sqlite3'
This will significantly speed up your test run.
Problem
I'm trying mock out a save method call on a django models.Model. I'm using Mock as my mocking library. I'm testing a function in the file house_factory.py , which is located at apps.deps.house_factory. house_factory.py: from apps.market.models import House ``` def create_house(location, date, price): house = House(id=None, date, price) house.save() # calculate some stuff and further expand the house instance # for example house.tag.add("some-tag") # save after calculations house.save() ``` I'd like to mock out the House model. ``` class HouseModelMock(mock.Mock): def save(self): pass ``` Testing method, is part of a unittest.TestCase class ``` @patch('apps.deps.house_factory.House', new_callable=HouseModelMock) def create_house_test(self, MockedHouse): """ Constants """ DAYS_FROM_TODAY = 55 DATE = datetime.date.today() + datetime.timedelta(days=DAYS_FROM_TODAY) PRICE = 250000 # A location is also a django module , I'm using factory_boy here for building a 'mocked' location location = LocationFactory.build() create_house(DATE, PRICE) MockedHouse.assert_called_with(None, DATE, PRICE) MockedHouse.save.assert_called_with() ``` If I run this test I'm getting a: call__ return self.call(*arg, **kw) MemoryError This is one of my first attempts to get serious with django and testing. So maybe I'm setting things up wrong, to mock out a database call. Any help is appreciated, Jonas.