Logging in using django-social-auth in a django unittest

Question

I'm writing a test suite for a django project which needs to login via django-social-auth (its facebook backend) in order to access the website.

The method I'm taking now is:

• for each test:
  • create a test user using facebook API
  • use selenium to login
  • interact with the website once user is logged in

problem is: I need to write a few tests which use the regular django unittest (not selenium). Any idea how I can login using the regular django unittest?

Answer 1

It's not an easy task since the oauth code is very coupled in social-auth. So you really need a oauth service answering.

What I have done is to patch the function social_auth.utils.urlopen with a mock that returns previously recorded answers to trick django-social-auth into thinking it is talking with a real oauth provider.

It's a really hacky solution but allows me to test my custom social-auth pipeline in an isolated environment.