configuring_django.rst

Configuring Django settings

There are a couple of different ways Django settings can be provided for the tests.

The environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE

Running the tests with DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE defined will find the Django settings the same way Django does by default.

Example:

$ export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=test_settings
$ pytest

or:

$ DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=test_settings pytest

Command line option --ds=SETTINGS

Example:

$ pytest --ds=test_settings

pytest.ini settings

Example contents of pytest.ini:

[pytest]
DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE = test_settings

Order of choosing settings

When the command option --ds, the environment variable and the pytest.ini configuration is used at the same time, pytest-django will prefer using settings from the command line option --ds, then the environment variable and last the pytest.ini. You can use addopts = --ds=yourtestsettings in your pytest configuration to automatically add the --ds option.

Using django-configurations

There is support for using django-configurations.

To do so configure the settings class using an environment variable, the --dc flag, or pytest.ini DJANGO_CONFIGURATION.

Environment Variable:

$ export DJANGO_CONFIGURATION=MySettings
$ pytest

Command Line Option:

$ pytest --dc=MySettings

INI File Contents:

[pytest]
DJANGO_CONFIGURATION=MySettings

Using django.conf.settings.configure()

Django settings can be set up by calling django.conf.settings.configure().

This can be done from your project's conftest.py file:

from django.conf import settings

def pytest_configure():
    settings.configure(DATABASES=...)

DEBUG setting during the test run

By default, django test runner forces DEBUG setting to False, and so does the pytest-django. But sometimes, especially for functional tests, there is a need to set DEBUG to True to investigate why certain page does not work. To do so, set --django-debug flag in command line.

Command Line Option:

$ pytest --django-debug