Django Testing Views

Setting up the example:

--- views.py -------------------------------------
# define a view for testing
def index(request, template_name=''):
    context = {'things':MyThing.objects.all(),}
    return render_to_response(
           template_name,
           context, context_instance=RequestContext(request))

--- urls.py ---------------------------------------
# define a url for testing
urlpatterns = patterns('',
...
    url('^$', 'core.views.index',
        {'template_name': 'someindex.html'},
         name="index"),
)

Testing from a Dango shell:
import django
from django.test.client import Client
django.test.utils.setup_test_environment() # needed to see response context
client = Client()
response = client.get('/')
response.context[-1]['things']

# we now have access to the response context and can use this

# test code in a unittest tests.py file.  (not yet shown)

Testing in a test.py file:
class SimpleTest(TestCase):

    def test_view_list(self):
        resp = self.client.get(reverse('some_named_url'))
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)
        self.assertTrue('somevar' in resp.context[-1])

http://ericholscher.com/blog/2008/nov/11/practical-examples-test-django/

Favorite Plugins

Firefox Plugins for Web Development
- ColorZilla # color picker
- Firebug # CSS / HTML / JS debugger
- Firecookie # cookie info for firebug
- JSONView # Pretty JSON viewer
- RESTClient # GET and POST to restful interfaces
- Selenium IDE # Create tests you can replay in the browser
- Tamper Data # Allow one to tamper with headers and POST vars the client sends
- View Source Chart # Pretty HTML viewer
- Web Developer # Web developer tools
- GMarks # google bookmars sync
- LIVE HTTP headers # view http headers
- SQLite Manager # manage SQLite db files
- YSlow # Yahoo performance tool
- SearchStatus # find website rankings

Thunderbird Plugins for Google Sync
- Lightening # Calendar plugin
- google_contacts # sync google contacts
- CalDev sync google calendar # http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358

Eclipse Plugins
- Pydev # python web development
- Subclipse # subversion for eclipse
- Egit # git plugin for eclipse
- m2eclipse # maven plugin for Java package management
- IndentGuide  # nice guidelines for code indenting http://atlanto.github.io/IndentGuide/

Python Date Operations

Get current time:
>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.date.today()
datetime.date(2011, 1, 12)
>>> datetime.datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 12, 20, 36, 21, 430985)

Adding time and timedelta:
>>> datetime.timedelta(hours=7) + datetime.datetime(2011,1,1)
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 1, 7, 0)
>>> datetime.timedelta(days=50) + datetime.date(2011,1,1)
datetime.date(2011, 2, 20)

Subtracting dates:
>>> datetime.date(2011,1,2) - datetime.date(2011,1,1)
datetime.timedelta(1)

Convert date and time into datetime:
>>> import datetime
>>> d = datetime.date(2010,01,05)
>>> t = datetime.time(10,25)

>>>datetime.datetime.combine(d,t)

datetime.datetime(2010, 1, 5, 10, 25)

Convert String to datetime:

>>> datetime.datetime.strptime("2011-01-05","%Y-%m-%d")

datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 5, 0, 0)

Convert datetime to individual components:

 >>> dt = datetime.datetime(2011,01,05,12,00)

>>> (dt.year, dt.month, dt.day, dt.hour, dt.minute)

(2011, 1, 5, 12, 0)

Convert datetime to date:

 >>> dt = datetime.datetime(2011,01,05,12,00)

>>> dt.date()

datetime.date(2011, 1, 5)

Add one day to a date:
>>> dt = datetime.datetime(2011,01,05,12,00)
>>> delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)

>>> dt + delta

datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 6, 12, 0)

Number of days in a month:
>>> import calendar
>>> calendar.monthrange(2011,1)
(5, 31)

Timezone
from pytz import timezone as tz
localtz = tz('US/Central')
#dt_aware = localtz.localize(dt_unaware)
dt_unaware.replace(tzinfo=localtz)

more to come...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1937622/convert-date-to-datetime-in-python

http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/programming_books/python_programming/python_ch32s03.html