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 9. When You Don't Even Know What to Log: Using Debuggers

For many problems encountered during development, a debugger is the most efficient tool to use to help figure out what is going on. A debugger lets you see exactly what the code is doing, step by step if necessary. It lets you see, and change, the values of variables along the way. With a debugger, you can even test out potential code fixes before making changes to the source code.

This chapter focuses on using debuggers to help debug during development of Django applications. Specifically, in this chapter we will:

  • Continue development of the survey application, seeing how the Python debugger, pdb, can be used to help figure out any problems that arise

  • Learn how to use the debugger to verify correct operation of code that is subject to multi-process race conditions

  • Briefly discuss the use of graphical debuggers for debugging Django applications