Book Image

Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging

Book Image

Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging

Overview of this book

Bugs are a time consuming burden during software development. Django's built-in test framework and debugging support help lessen this burden. This book will teach you quick and efficient techniques for using Django and Python tools to eradicate bugs and ensure your Django application works correctly. This book will walk you step by step through development of a complete sample Django application. You will learn how best to test and debug models, views, URL configuration, templates, and template tags. This book will help you integrate with and make use of the rich external environment of test and debugging tools for Python and Django applications. The book starts with a basic overview of testing. It will highlight areas to look out for while testing. You will learn about different kinds of tests available, and the pros and cons of each, and also details of test extensions provided by Django that simplify the task of testing Django applications. You will see an illustration of how external tools that provide even more sophisticated testing features can be integrated into Django's framework. On the debugging front, the book illustrates how to interpret the extensive debugging information provided by Django's debug error pages, and how to utilize logging and other external tools to learn what code is doing.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Django 1.1 Testing and Debugging
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
Index

Chapter 6. Django Debugging Overview

The best test suite in the world won't save you from having to debug problems. Tests simply report whether code is working correctly. When there is a problem in the code, found either via a failing test or some other means, debugging is necessary to figure out what exactly has gone wrong. A good test suite, run regularly, can certainly help in debugging. The specifics of the error message from the failure, the aggregate information provided by what tests pass versus what tests fail, in addition to the knowledge of what code change introduced the problem, can all provide important clues for debugging. Sometimes those clues are enough to figure out what has gone wrong and how to fix it, but often it is necessary to perform additional debugging.

This chapter introduces Django's debugging support. It provides an overview of topics that will be covered in greater depth in subsequent chapters. Specifically, this chapter will:

  • List the Django settings that control...