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

Notes on using graphical debuggers


In this chapter, we have focused exclusively on use of the Python command-line debugger, pdb. Graphical integrated development environments such as Eclipse, NetBeans, and Komodo also provide debuggers that can be used for Django application code (though some require installation of particular plugins to support development of Python code). The details of setting up and using any of these environments is beyond the scope of what is covered here, but some general notes on using graphical debuggers for Django applications will be included next.

First, there are some definite advantages to using a graphical debugger. Usually, a graphical debugger will provide individual window panes that show the currently executing source code, the program stack trace, local variables, and program output. This can make it easy to quickly get an overall sense of the state of the program. It tends to be harder to do this in pdb, where you must run individual commands to get the...