Where do I initialize my webdriver in Django using Selenium along django.test

Question

I am willing to test my Django application using Selenium. From what I read, Django already cover the testing part and allow you to write your own tests.

Willing to use this with Selenium, here is my <application>/test.py:

from some.path.to.my.utilitary.module import TestTools


class FormTestCase(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.webui = TestTools()

    def test_advanced_settings(self):
        self.webui.go_to('home')
        self.webui.click('id', 'button-advanced-settings')
        self.webui.click('id', 'id_setting_0')
        self.webui.click('id', 'id_setting_1')
        self.webui.click('id', 'id_setting_2')
        self.webui.click('id', 'id_setting_3', submit=True)

    def test_zone_selector(self):
        self.webui.go_to('home')
        self.webui.click('id', 'button-zone-selector')

I've written a Python class in which I implemented the Selenium logic (TestTools), so I can focus on writing test code in my Django applications:

class TestTools():
    def __init__(self):
        self.driver = webdriver.Firefox(...)
        ...

    # Those methods use self.driver to do things

    def click(...):
        ...

    def go_to(...):
        ...

    def quit(...):
        ...

I noticed I couldn't override the __init__ method in the TestCase child, so I put the self.webui = TestTools() in the setUp method. However, it is called twice (for each test method I guess), and thus create 2 webdrivers.

What I want to do is running ./manage test, opening only one browser and running all my tests upon it. Where should the webdriver initialization live ?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Here's my insight.

I prefer to create a custom TestCase based on LiveServerTestCase:

class SeleniumTestCase(LiveServerTestCase):
    """
    A base test case for selenium, providing different helper methods.
    """

    def setUp(self):
        self.driver = WebDriver()

    def tearDown(self):
        self.driver.quit()

    def open(self, url):
        self.driver.get("%s%s" % (self.live_server_url, url))

Then, all my test cases are derived from this SeleniumTestCase.

Hope that helps.